I come from a long line of adventurous people. Both sets of grandparents immigrated to America with only a couple dollars in their pocket and not a word of English. My parents left their freimds and families behind and relocated their brood of young children from the harsh grime of Cleveland to the sunny shores of Fort Lauderdale. But my four siblings and I… well that’s another story.
Clearly the adventurous gene skipped my generation. My siblings and I all live in the same zip code where we grew up and, until fairly recently, I lived on the same street as my childhood home. My two sisters still live barely one hundred yards apart from each other. We may have left the familial nest but we were clearly determined to keep it in sight.
Even though my brothers and sisters and I get along unnaturally well, I understand that the geographic closeness that I enjoy with my siblings is often mystifying to those who have more casual relationships with their siblings. This was certainly the case with Judson, my sister’s new husband.
We were delighted when she married him and he fit into the family dynamic perfectly, ike a hand into a glove. I knew that he had several siblings of his own that he rarely if ever saw, but when he moved into my sister’s little house it seemed like we were all destined to enjoy a serene middle age of mid-week family dinners and Sunday brunches.
It was over dinner one Wednesday night that day Judson said, “We need a bigger house,” and none of us were surprised. He had sold the large house where he raised his three sons with his first wife but the house where my sister had lived as a widow with her dog and her cat was really too small. It seemed logical that they would look for a more suitable place.
It was only a couple of weeks later that my middle sister sent us all a group text. “We put a contract on a house!” she texted. “You’ll love it.”
I was immediately suspicious. My sister only shares important news via text message when she is trying to avoid a verbal confrontation. News of this magnitude called for, minimally, a phone call, not a text message.
My response was terse. “Where?” I texted.
It took her far too long to respond; I could envision her biting her lip and twisting her hair as she formulated her answer, like when we were kids and Mom would ask, “Have you been smoking?”
The response when it came took our collective breaths away. “Boca,” she texted.
Our response was immediate and viral. “BOCA RATON?????????” ?” I texted.
“It’s so far away!” texted my older sister.
“They have no homes in Fort Lauderdale?” texted my brother.
My partner got right to the point. “I never had any sisters of my own,” he texted, “and now you’re deserting me.”
Judson sent a couple of halfhearted texts justifying their decision but he was clearly out of his league. “You can get so much more house for the money in Boca,” he texted adding, unwisely, “ It’s only 15 miles away; It’s really not that far!”
“It’s a different county!” texted my sister.
“It’s a different area code!” texted my brother.
“It’s a different zip code!” I texted.
My partner went right for the jugular: “None of us are getting any younger,” he texted . “When we’re old the rest of us we won’t be able to drive on I-95 to visit you when you’re sick.”
But Judson and my sister were adamant; they dug in their heels maintaining that it was a great value and we’d just have to get used to visiting them up in Boca. The rest of us, appalled, settled into a stony silence and all texting stopped for almost 36 hours.
That was 12 hours longer than I projected but eventually my middle sister texted us all. “Maybe the Boca house was not such a good deal after all,” she said. “We just found a place a quarter mile away from Guy’s house, ” she texted. “It’s beautiful. You’ll love it!”
When I showed my partner the text he looked concerned. “Wow,” he said. “I hope that’s not too close for comfort.”