Ways To Make Sunshine

When Ray and I get home, I go straight to my room to change my jeans before Mom asks any questions. When I come back downstairs, Dad and Mom are setting out bowls and spoons on the dining room table. “Hope you had a great day at school,” Mom says. “We thought we’d have a little treat,” she tells us. Dad brings two pints of ice cream out of the freezer and asks, “Which flavor should I open?” Usually Mom and Dad only let us have ice cream
for dessert but never, ever before dinner. I know something is up.

I am sitting across from Ray at the dining room table. I look at Ray, a little surprised, a little worried. “What’s wrong, Dad?” Ray asks. “Nothing’s wrong,” Dad says. “Which flavor?” Ray only likes plain things (like steamed broccoli with no melted cheese and cheese pizza with no pepperoni, or mushrooms, or crunchy bell peppers). He doesn’t have adventurous taste buds like I do, so of course he picks vanilla. I like vanilla and chocolate and strawberry. I like dulce de leche and peppermint and cookies and cream. But most of all I love Tillamook’s Marionberry Pie ice cream. The rich vanilla ice cream is mixed with fresh Oregon marionberries and big chunks of piecrust. I always eat it slow so it can last
and last. Why are we breaking our no-dessert-before-dinner rule?

“Chocolate, please,” I say. Ray shouts out “Family vote!” because he knows
that Dad likes vanilla better than chocolate.

It’s a tie–Dad and Ray for vanilla, Mom and me for chocolate. We usually settle ties with a round of rock-paper-scissors but instead I tell them, “It doesn’t matter. Vanilla is fine.
Mom holds her hand out toward Dad to stop him from opening the pint of vanilla ice cream. “Are you sure, Ryan?”
“Vanilla is fine,” I repeat. I mean, it’s not that I don’t like vanilla. It’s just not my favorite. And really, I just want to get to the reason why we’re breaking
our no-dessert-before-dinner rule.

Dad scoops out ice cream for each of us and then it happens. Mom says, “So we wanted to have a little treat to celebrate some good news.” She looks at Dad, passing the announcement on to him like she’s tagging him in a game of chase.
“We are going to be moving to a new house,” Dad says.
Then Mom adds, “We found a nice place that’s not too far from here”

My bowl of ice cream sits in front of me. I haven’t taken one bite.