I feel a tingle of excitement as we drive up to the shingled building with friendly shutters and a veranda-like porch. When Marcus and I enter the front door, good memories wash over me. Though I haven’t come here often since I left Indiana for college, I was a regular before that. As soon as we walk through the door, I spot my favorite person in the place, not counting my grandparents, of course. I take Marcus’s hand and rush him over to the desk of Rowena Presley, my grandparents’ able and robust assistant. Rowena thinks she is Elvis Presley’s distant cousin and keeps a sign on her desk that says, Don’t be cruel. She says that’s good advice for her and anyone else who approaches her desk. I start around the desk to give her a hug, but she puts up her hand to stop me. Then she grabs her jar of jelly beans from the top of her desk and puts it in the bottom drawer. I laugh, and she stands up and catches me into a bear hug that lifts me off the floor. She hugs Marcus too, the friendliest introduction he has experienced yet, though she doesn’t hoist him from the floor.
