I walk up to her, waiting for the memories to come. Every time Tía’s wrung her wrinkled hands while watching me from this very table or compulsively checked whether her charcoal hair is contained in the tight bun on top of her head.

I know exactly what Tía’s going to say. Whenever we’ve had this conversation, she introduces the topic without changing a word. Only when we get into the thick of it and she starts anticipating what I’m going to say do the variations emerge. It’s like she’s writing a novel or a play, rewriting drafts of this scene until she gets it perfect.

Today, I’m not playing. I preempt her. “Did you take my college binder?” I ask brusquely. Tía blinks, thrown, while I search the counter and the table for signs of my heavy three-ring binder. I know exactly where I left it—next to my suitcase on my bed. When I got home after running the student government ice cream stand to celebrate the official start of winter break, the binder was gone.

“No, chiquita, I haven’t seen it.” She grimaces, worry lines creasing her forehead. “This trip, I don’t think you should go.”

I grit my teeth. That only took Tía two seconds. Now it’s just a matter of getting away quickly. “I have to visit the schools sometime.” I sigh, circling the table and quickly searching the counters. Hoping for signs of my binder, I glance into the living room. “One of them will be my home for the next four years.”

I don’t need to look at Tía to know her expression has soured. “This is your home, Juniper. Those are schools.”

“What, then, you’d rather I just not go to college?” I challenge.

Tía’s face tightens. “Of course you’re going to college. We live close to some of the finest colleges in the country. Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, UMass Amherst, and—”

“—Mount Holyoke. I know.” The day Tía found my Fiske Guide to Colleges and discovered we lived thirty minutes from the Five College Consortium, my life got way harder. I wander to the couch in the living room and begin rummaging through piles of my siblings’ homework, everything from coloring to calculus. I hear Tía get up slowly from her chair, her slippered feet following me into the living room. Right then and there, I take a small, selective vow of silence. I’m done trying to convince her. She’ll never understand. All I need to do is find my binder and get out the door.

“Never mind that,” Tía says gently behind me. “A road trip like this? What will you even eat?” I blink and round on Tía, incredulous. This is an argumentative reach, even for her. My vow of silence flies out the window.

“There are a thousand restaurants between Boston and Virginia. We’re not going to starve, Tía.”

She shakes her head, her frown deepening like I’ve committed some grave sin. “Take some tamales.”

I laugh despite myself. Memories of tamale birthdays and Christmases waft from my subconscious to my nose, the smell of masa, chicken cooking, and steaming chili. “Tía, I can’t just bring tamales on a road trip.”

Before Tía has the chance to refute me with what will undoubtedly be a well-reasoned defense of bringing tamales on road trips, my mother walks in wearing the harried expression she’s never been without since my brothers were born. Coffee in one hand, she’s vainly trying to pull her straight blonde hair into a ponytail with the other. I seize my chance. “Mom, have you seen my college binder?”

“It’s entirely possible, but I can’t even remember if I changed my underwear this morning, so I’m not much help.” I watch her eyes run over the room, looking for stuff out of place or things she needs, and I can practically read the to-do lists forming behind her blue eyes.

I didn’t get those blue eyes from my mom, whose fair skin looks even paler behind the dusting of freckles I did inherit. I resemble my dad more, with my darker complexion and thick, wavy tresses. It’s my younger brothers who ended up with Mom’s delicate features and light hair.

Right on cue—like the mere thought of them summoned their presence—a double-voiced chorus of “Mom!” rings out from the back of the house. I wonder with a twinge of worry what Xan and Walker have gotten into now, remembering the time they had a water-balloon fight in my parents’ bedroom, or when they bathed our cat, Malfoy, in the toilet bowl, or both times they tried to cook macaroni in the toaster. With a seven- and ten-year-old brother who incite whatever mischief they can, nothing is out of the question. From the way my mother’s head whirls, I know she’s imagining similar possibilities.

“Did you talk to Rob about opening early on Monday?” Tía asks, bringing Mom’s attention back to the kitchen. I guess no one’s safe from her interrogations this morning.

Mom grimaces. “No, I forgot. I can’t imagine how,” she says, sharing a wry look with me. “I’ll do it tomorrow, first thing.”

Mom and Tía run a restaurant together. Dad cooks, while Mom does the books and Tía oversees the rest. Rosalita’s is the only place to get authentic Mexican food in the city. It’s sort of a local sensation, whatever that means in midsized Springfield, Massachusetts. When it was featured on an Eater.com list, my parents were beside themselves. Tía, too, once we explained to her what blogs were. I used to do homework in the restaurant’s expansive sunken dining room when I was in elementary and middle school, before I had calc and chemistry and AP US History and real studying. There were days I could hardly concentrate with the clatter of the kitchen and the heavenly smells of homemade tortillas and machaca. Tía and her sister, Rosalita, my grandmother, opened the place nearly forty years ago. Mom and Dad filled in when—

I shut off my thoughts, not wanting to dwell on that.

“Why don’t you help your mother remember a couple things around the house?” Tía asks me. “It’d be a better use of that memory of yours.”

“Better than my perfect grades?” I snap back. While I do have an exceptional memory—good enough to ace every one of Mrs. Karis’s infamous AP European History exams and never forget friends’ birthdays—Tía only thinks it’s useful when it helps the family. But I catch Tía giving me a stern look and regret my sarcasm. “Of course, Tía,” I amend, looking imploringly at my mom, hoping she’ll jump in and save me.

She doesn’t, her expression distant and distracted. It’s a familiar response. I’m decently close with my mom, close enough to have semi-regular Disney movie nights just us two. But my mother divides her time and focus evenly among her six kids. My dad, on the other hand, plays favorites, to my obvious benefit.

“Now, your trip,” Tía prompts. She turns her skeptical eyes on Mom. “I don’t know why you’re letting her go alone with a boy.”