The Loan Papers I Signed Alone

He set each box down in the trunk very carefully, like they had eggs in them. He did not say much of anything.

When it was time, Abby went to him in the yard. She put her arms around his middle the way she used to when she was small, and he put his arms around her, and he held on for a long time.

Longer than I have ever seen him hold on to anybody.

“Drive careful,” he said into her hair. “Call your mom when you’re settled.”

Then Abby pulled back and said, “Wait, I forgot something,” and she ran back into the house. She was gone maybe two minutes.

When she came out she did not say what she had gone for, and I did not ask. She just got in the car.

Jeff stood in the yard and watched us go down the driveway.

In my rearview mirror I saw him lift one hand, and then he turned and walked toward his pickup, and the dust from our tires came up between us and I could not see him anymore.

It is an hour east to the university, mostly two-lane through corn and beans and little towns with a grain elevator and a water tower and not much else. Abby picked the radio station.

We sang along to a couple of songs we both knew the words to and did not talk about her dad.

We came into town a little before ten. The campus sits on a hill above the river, and the freshman dorms are on the far side, three tall brick buildings around a big lawn with a parking lot along the front.

The lot was a madhouse in the best way. Minivans and pickups and cars with their trunks open, and families everywhere, carrying boxes and lamps and mini fridges across the lawn in the late-summer sun.

Somebody’s dad was steering a dolly stacked with totes. Somebody’s little brother was carrying one pillow like it was the most important job in the world.

Abby’s dorm was the brick one closest to the lot, with wide glass doors and a folding table out front where two upper class girls in matching shirts were handing out room keys.

I found a spot in the second row. It was hot already, and I was glad I had worn just a white T-shirt and jeans, with my gray quilted vest over it, the one I wear to the bank when the air conditioning is turned up too high.

My shoulder-length dark brown hair was already sticking to the back of my neck.

Abby had changed at a gas station on the way. She came out of the restroom in a maroon T-shirt from the university that she had bought at orientation in June and had been saving for this exact morning.

Her long light brown hair was down, and she looked about twelve years old and about thirty at the same time.

I popped the trunk. The biggest cardboard box sat in it, the rest were in the back seat, every one of them labeled.

Abby went around to the back seat first and came out with the laundry basket, piled with her clothes, a gray sweatshirt on top.

I leaned into the trunk and got my hands on the biggest box. Towels and sheets, it said, in her round handwriting, with a little heart drawn after it.

I hauled it out and straightened up with it in my arms, and Abby was standing there next to me with the laundry basket on her hip, smiling at me.