Note: The following story is entirely fictional and all of the characters are over 18 years of age.
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Hello. My name is Miguel and I live with my mother in the city of Boston. My father passed away when I was quite young and the two of us have been on our own for as long as I can remember.
My mother was rather young when she had me, thus, growing up, she seemed more like a big sister than a mother. A big sister, that is, who worked, paid the bills, kept me fed and raised me single-handedly.
One of the many reasons that I adore my mother is that she was always brutally honest with me, especially when it came to finances. If we couldn't afford something, she said so and why. If we could, and it made sense, she always spent the money.
This past summer I graduated from high school and turned eighteen. For many residents of Boston and the surrounding towns, summer means time spent on Cape Cod. However, even a modest weekly rental is very expensive. I would be leaving for college soon, so early in the summer my mother posed an idea.
"I'm not sure we can afford an entire week, but how would you like to go to the Cape for a long weekend, before you leave?"
This was classic Mom. She always spoke about what "we" could afford.
Although I had worked for the past two summers, the funds for this vacation would come entirely from her. It was understood that almost all the money I earned was put away for my college education.
To me, staying on the Cape was always something that "other" people did, families with two incomes that lived in the nicer suburbs, or the upper-crust of Boston.
We went to the beach, North or South, almost every weekend in the summer, but it was always for day-trips requiring a long drive back to the city at day's end.
"Mom, that sounds great!" I said.
Her eyes lit up and she went to work.
Mom settled on a modest three-bedroom ranch in a town called "Dennis." Supposedly, the house was within walking distance of the beach. Mom explained that this town was in the middle of Cape Cod, so the trip should take less than two hours. For city-dwellers like us, it could have been Mars.
"Since there are three bedrooms, I'm thinking of inviting one of my sisters, as well, as long as you don't mind."
I had no objection, and after a few calls, Mom found that her sister, my Aunt Lola, was free that weekend, but couldn't come until Sunday, because of work. My Aunt Lola was a couple of years younger than my mother. Still single, she worked as a hairdresser in the neighborhood where she lived. I would drop by the salon from time to time, ostensibly with a message from my mother, but really just to get a look at all of the gorgeous girls who always seemed to fill the place.
On a Saturday, just before Labor Day, we loaded up our car and headed south.
As Mom predicted, we arrived in just under two hours and wound our way through the narrow streets until we found our place. As we got out of the car and stretched, I noticed how quiet it was. Living in the city, one gets used to a certain level of background noise, from traffic, sirens, alarms, airplanes, etc.
Here, a hundred miles from home, it seemed as quiet as the Moon.
Up and down the street, we could see other families emptying their cars and hauling their things into their places. Mom explained that this was a weekly ritual called "changeover," and we were part of it, now. She had read a bit and she was proud of her new knowledge, having become quite the expert on the Cape since she had booked our modest little house.
We entered the house and had a look around. We saw a nice living room with a sofa and some comfortable looking chairs, and, absurdly, a fireplace that I doubt worked. The large kitchen got a nod of approval from Mom, and there was a sliding door that led outside to a deck, next to the house.
Like kids at camp, we rushed to claim our bedrooms. We laughed at the third bedroom. It was tiny with a single small bed, so we decided that that had to go to Lola, since she would be the last to arrive. The other bedrooms were similar, with twin beds in each. I could see that the owner had set the place up for maximum occupancy. I also knew that unbeknownst to the owners, gangs of college kids were sometimes known to fill places like this with up to twenty people at a time, to defray expenses.
