Have Cassette Clock Radio, Will Travel

An overnight visit pleases my Mom no end.

She says it's because my Dad gets up so early and that's when he's most productive. Since I'm often going there to help with assorted chores, we can get an earlier start than if I arrive mid-morning. And maybe that's true but I think she also just likes having any of her daughters around to cook for and fuss over.

When I arrived after my dinner at Merroir, my parents' village wasn't just sleepy, it looked closed down tight except for their house. Getting out of the car, I was greeted by a salty breeze and the sound of the river lapping at the shore. I walked down to the dock before going inside just because I could.

Coming in via the big screened porch, I couldn't help but notice that my father had rearranged the porch furniture. Again. He's always been a re-arranger and as far back as elementary school, I have memories of him rearranging our bedrooms and the living room on a regular basis.

Complimenting him on the new arrangement, I admitted that I hadn't thought any new permutations were possible. "But of course!" he came back, one eye on the Nationals game and the other on finishing up a crossword puzzle.

But of course. Some fathers have hobbies, mine arranges furniture.

When he heard I'd just come from Merroir, his first question was about what kinds of oysters I'd had, pleased to hear I'd been downing Old Saltes. I am his daughter in that way.

After a practically silent night (so unlike the cacophony of city sleeping) with a steady breeze blowing through the window off the river, I joined my parents at the breakfast table just as they were finishing up. Knowing Dad was eager to get busy, I downed a quick breakfast of biscuits, bacon and Grape Nuts so we could.

There's never any way of knowing what a day holds when I go out there to help. Today we began in the bedroom on the third floor, a room with a magnificent view of the Rappahannock, hanging curtains. I gathered up loads of stuff they were ready to let go of and put it in my car bound for the thrift store.

While loading my car, I noticed two rabbits munching greens in the yard. Upstairs a bit later, Dad spotted something through the window and said, "Look at the wingspan of that raptor!" It was swooping directly over the yard where the bunnies had been. Goodbye, Thumper.

It was only morning and already hot and humid, so when my Mom came down dressed in pants and a long-sleeved shirt, I looked at her like she was crazy, asking why she wasn't wearing shorts. "Not with this scar on my leg!" she said dismissively, referring to the knee replacement surgery she had last summer.

There was no talking her into changing, so I let it go. Later, Dad and I were discussing his frustration with her modesty about the scar. "I could understand if we were going into town, but around here? It's just like the way she insists on wearing something to bed when there's someone else in the house, like last night." Oops, it had been a warm night and I hadn't bothered with that nicety.

"Now, me, I've slept nude since I left the army and I make no concessions for guests," he says, over-sharing as he's known to do.

Me, too, I remind him, causing him to nod approvingly. "As it should be." What, all fathers and daughters don't bond over commando sleeping habits?

Over the course of the day, we worked on two of the porches, the little one off their bedroom and the big sleeping porch, doing a thorough cleaning for the season while I nudged them to get rid of stuff they no longer use.

Sometimes that works in my favor, like when we uncovered four radios of various types on the big porch and I immediately called dibs on the cassette player clock radio, which had to be circa late '70s. I didn't recall that cassette clock radios had even existed. Now I have one.

Ditto the traveling bar we unearthed on their little porch. The case had been lovingly swathed in duct tape, no doubt to hold it together over the decades (Dad, matter-of-factly: "Oh, yes, I've recovered this several times") but inside it was as pristine as could be. All the components - four metal glasses, shot glass, wine opener, bottle opener and, yes, serving tray were nestled in their elastic holders inside.

The only surprise was a half-burnt red candle in the case and when I picked it up and looked at him inquisitively, he nodded and grinned. Apparently sometimes when you're using you travel bar, you need a little mood lighting. Leave it to my Dad.

For the first time in years, I saw my parents' record collection leaning up against two walls on the porch. Not sure what surprised me more, Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart, or less, Neil Diamond and Herb Alpert.

After lunch we sat enjoying the breeze on the rearranged porch and they told me the latest on the locals. A little gray house had burned down and they'd never even heard the fire trucks. A neighbor had fallen down the steps, hit her head on a safe and died the next day. My Mom, ever the worrier, took this as indication that my father should move the bricks near their porch steps in case he fell and hit his head on them.

My father, never an alarmist, declined to move the bricks and we changed topics. Mom said several of my sisters have been trying to convince them to move to Maryland, where all five of them live. This was news to me.

"If we did move, and we probably won't, we would still want to be on the water," Mom said, surprising me. They don't go down to the dock or beach anymore but she insists they still feel the connection to the river and its calming effects after 30 years there. And they're not leaving that.

Mom wanted me to go upstairs with her so she could try on a new dress she needed hemmed. While we were up there, she pulled out a typewritten sheet and told me she'd come across it today and that she'd never shown it to any of her daughters.

"Since you're the writer, I want you to read it," she said. With no clue what it might be, I began reading something she'd written when she was 45, two months after her mother had died. She'd called it, "Nobody Told Me" and it was about adjusting to life once you're no longer someone's daughter. About losing part of how you define yourself.

It was incredibly moving and completely unlike anything I'd ever known her to write or say, like getting a glance inside her head when I would have been too young to imagine what she was going through. It was a "wow" moment of a perfectly lovely day.

We accomplished more - I hemmed the dress, helped Dad mount the goldfinch feeder over the lilies whose perfume scented our time on the porch, framed the wedding photo of my handsome grandparents - before winding down the day, what else, chatting on the porch again. We're talking people, that's for sure.

And by "we," I mean me and the two people I'm daughter to. Nobody told me I'd won the jackpot by springing from the loins of such shamelessly eccentric and happy people.

But of course I did.