The summer she turned 20 she went to visit her aunts without her parents but with her roommates from college. They had decided to spend time with each other's families before school started again. They thought it would be fun to see where they all called home. Stacy had brought them to her house and they had met her parents but she felt that they wouldn't really know where she was from unless she brought them here.
They had spent a week at the birthday cake house and were comfortable enough to explore on their own. Stacy was on one of the platforms, which was under construction again looking at the changes her Aunt Bets had started, that she wouldn't complete until Fall. "What is she building?" She asked her Aunt Perry.
"What does it look like to you?"
"Well, this side looks like an extension of the garden, but the other looks like framing for another room."
"That's as good a guess as any."
"Does it ever bother you that you don't know what she's adding until it's finished?"
Aunt Perry shook her head, "No. She's made plenty of additions that were requested. The library was for me. The observatory was for Gloria. She builds what we need, what we want, and what amuses her. I think it's a good compromise. So tell me how your friends are settling in."
Stacy walked with her aunt back toward the main garden area and sat down in one of the swings. "I think they really like it here."
"Was that important to you?"
Stacy nodded. "It was. I know it probably shouldn't have been. I mean, they never really have to come here again. But I wanted them to..." she trailed off.
"To?"
"It sounds bad."
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that."
"I wanted them to be who I thought they were. Does that make sense?"
"Who did you think they were?"
Stacy sighed, it was hard to explain. "I thought they were who they are. I know that's really circular but it's the only way I can explain it. So, okay, freshman year Jaelyn and I were roommates with another girl, Gaby. Gaby was great but she was not someone I would ever bring here to visit. She wouldn't have understood what I was sharing. When Gaby moved out at the semester and Alicia moved in it was like a puzzle piece just clicked in place. The picture might be really different, but we all fit."
Aunt Perry nodded, "And what about Mitchell?"
Stacy actually blushed a little here. "I knew Mitchell would love this place before I ever asked him to come here."
"Because he loves you?"
Stacy nodded, "Yes. I know we are way too young and..."
"Who says you are way too young?"
"Well everyone. My parents."
"Your parents or everyone? Because your parents are only two people."
"Okay, a lot of people. But, Aunt Perry, I already know. I've known since we met. I mean, I didn't know know. I knew he was always going to be a friend, but now I know, you know?"
"I know." Aunt Perry reached out and held her hand and they began to swing.
In the quiet they could hear Jaelyn walking with Aunt Bets around the outside of the house. Jaelyn was studying to be an architect and the house was endlessly fascinating to her.
"But it really shouldn't be able to stand." Up above them on the garden level, Stacy and Aunt Perry exchanged a look and a smile. It was the same thing her father used to always say but in a much different tone. It was wonder instead of accusation.
"It does stand though. It's sound."
Years later when people would write stories about the spaces and buildings that Jaelyn designed they always mentioned her "touch of whimsy" her "unique and bold choices" and her "ability to make a building seem like more than just a building." She always gave credit to Aunt Bets and the advice she had given her, "Never let should or shouldn't get in the way of does." People would nod like they understood, but only a handful ever really did.
At that moment Alicia was in the kitchen with Aunt Gloria. That's where she had spent most of her time. Alicia wanted to own a restaurant. She wanted to own a chain actually. She was majoring in business and hospitality management to prepare for that path but this summer she started a new phase of her education.
Years later when Alicia was a James Beard award winner and owned several successful restaurants she released her first cookbook and titled it "In Gloria's Kitchen." When asked about the significance of the title she explained that she had the opportunity to learn to cook from a woman who taught her the difference between cooking and creating and between feeding people and nourishing them. This cookbook held some of Gloria's recipes and some of her wisdom. Including tips on paying too much attention to your flour and then very little attention at all. People would nod while reading the recipe like they understood what she was saying, but only a handful ever really did.
Mitchell was in the library reading. When Stacy had first shown him the room he had fallen to the floor and grasped his chest, "I have died and gone to heaven!" She had known this would be the space he loved the most. Jaelyn was going to be an architect. Gloria was going to run an empire. Mitchell was going to write. She showed him her place marker. "In all of these years you have only read this far?"
"This is my fourth new library."
He didn't ask her to explain and she was glad. She wanted him to be surprised when he finished as well. But he didn't start at the beginning and work through them all. His preferred method was to close his eyes and pick at random. Which had always been Aunt Perry's way as well. Every visit they made to the birthday cake house he read as much as he could, always picking at random and never running out of new books to read. He understood what she meant by new library after about his sixth visit to the house. He had been delighted with the discovery.
That visit was a few years after the extension to the garden had been completed with a white gazebo that was perfect for a sunset wedding. And the year before he and Stacy co-wrote their Newbery Award winning book, "The Witches in the Wonky Tower." It was about the same time as the other platform had been completed. It was going to make a perfect nursery.
Stacy had brought her friends to meet her family and her family had given them all gifts. The best gift of all was Jaelyn now visited her Aunts every year, usually during the fall, that was the best time for building. And Alicia visited her Aunts every year, especially in the spring when creating new recipes was the easiest. And they all visited their Aunts for big chosen family reunions as often as they could.
....
The summer before her first birthday she made her first trip to the place her mother called the birthday cake house but what she would always know was the wonky tower...
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