Auden’s summer move to Colby

Auden’s summer move to Colby is the turning point that takes her from an isolated summer at home to an eight-week stay with Robert and Heidi before college. The move begins not with a family plan but with Auden’s decision to go somewhere: a small act of initiative that gives her a chance to reconnect with her father, even as she prepares for the visit by expecting to feel out of place.

The decision to leave

By eleven one night, Auden is alone in her room while her mother’s admirers remain downstairs. Checking her Ume.com page brings no messages, and an email from Robert asking how things are going is the only correspondence waiting for her. She considers contacting a friend, then remembers how awkward her recent social outings have felt and stays on her bed instead. The scene makes the choice to leave emerge from a specific kind of loneliness: Auden is not simply bored, but conscious of how little she shares with the friends whose school-year stories concern gossip, boys, and heartbreak.

Auden picks up a photograph of Hollis, her brother, with a backpack over his shoulder. The frame’s inscription, “THE BEST OF TIMES,” makes her think of the stories and photographs her old friends might have accumulated, while she has none of her own to put in it. Hollis’s image suggests that travel can offer both opportunity and a change of scenery. Auden cannot go to Greece or India, but she realizes she can still go somewhere. That thought shifts the scene from passive disappointment toward a possible choice.

She replies to Robert’s email and asks whether she can come. He answers within half an hour, welcoming her and saying that she can stay as long as she likes. The invitation is warm and uncomplicated; Auden’s summer changes as soon as it arrives. Her decision is therefore both self-directed and relational: she initiates the visit, but Robert’s ready welcome makes it possible.

Preparing for the visit

The next morning, Auden packs her car with a small duffel bag of clothes, her laptop, and a large suitcase of books. The books are not incidental luggage. She has already found syllabi for a couple of her fall courses at Defriese University and tracked down some of the assigned texts at the U bookstore, intending to get acquainted with the material before classes begin. Even as she agrees to spend the summer elsewhere, she carries the habits of advance preparation with her. Her packing contrasts with Hollis’s travel-ready image: Auden is not setting out lightly, and she assumes there may be little to do once she arrives beyond going to the beach and spending time with Heidi.

She has said goodbye to her mother the previous night, expecting her to be asleep when Auden leaves. Instead, she finds her mother in the kitchen, clearing wineglasses and crumpled napkins from the table after a late gathering. The final car had left around one thirty. Auden notices a pair of black, fashionably nerdy glasses on the counter and connects them with the late voices, her mother’s early rising, and her unusual eagerness to clean up. She considers drawing attention to the glasses to make a point, but chooses not to. Her mother pulls her into a tight hug before letting her go. The departure thus carries an unresolved note: Auden notices more than she says, yet leaves without turning the goodbye into a confrontation.

Arrival at Robert and Heidi’s house

Robert and Heidi’s house is a white-painted home with green shutters, a broad front porch, rocking chairs, potted flowers, and a yellow ceramic pineapple welcoming visitors at the door. Robert’s worn Volvo sits in the open garage beside a newer Prius. The ocean is close enough to be audible from the car, and around the side of the house Auden sees beach grass and an expanse of blue reaching the horizon. This setting offers the change of scenery she had imagined, but its inviting appearance does not immediately make her feel at home.

As she drives farther from her mother’s house, Auden’s doubts grow. She imagines the summer with Heidi as a possible series of mismatched, overly familiar activities: group manicures, tanning, or matching shirts. These are apprehensions, not things that happen; they show how readily Auden anticipates social discomfort before she has tested the household for herself. She steadies herself by recalling Hollis’s photograph and by remembering how bored she was alone at home. She has also hardly seen Robert since he married, and the eight weeks when he is not teaching and she is not in school seem like a last chance to spend time with him before college and adult life begin.

Auden takes a deep breath, gets out of the car, and tells herself to smile and go along with whatever Heidi says or does, at least until she can reach her room and close the door. She rings the doorbell, steps back, and arranges her face into what she considers a suitably friendly expression. When no one answers, she rings again and listens for the heels and cheerful greeting she expects from Heidi. There is still no response. The welcome Robert offered by email and the welcome Auden imagined at the door do not yet coincide; the arrival ends in uncertainty rather than immediate domestic ease.

Significance of the move

The move starts Auden’s summer with Robert’s family, but its first importance lies in the choice that precedes it. Faced with social isolation at home, she does not wait for a friend to invite her out or pretend that her existing routine is satisfying. Instead, she answers her father’s email with a request of her own. The episode gives the summer a clear threshold: a car packed with clothes, a laptop, and coursework carries her away from a life she finds lonely and toward an unfamiliar family arrangement.

The visit is not framed as a simple escape from responsibility. Auden brings fall reading with her, expects the beach and time with Heidi to be unappealing, and plans to manage discomfort by smiling and retreating behind a bedroom door. At the same time, her reasons for going reach beyond scenery: she wants company, has been bored alone, and sees a limited opportunity to catch up with Robert before college. The move therefore holds together reluctance and possibility. Auden arrives prepared to protect herself from awkwardness, but the act of going gives her access to a summer—and a relationship with her father—that staying home could not provide.