The Radius of Us by Marie Marquardt

Author:Marie Marquardt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

GRETCHEN

“SO, THAT’S IT, THEN?”

“Yeah,” I tell my dad. “It’s over.”

Dad and I are sitting at the kitchen table, talking about my night with Adam. I have my compass in one hand, and I’m smoothing a map with the other—an actual map.

“And you’re okay with it?”

“I was the one who did it, Dad.”

I can’t remember the last time I looked at a map—like, a real paper one with lots of folds and complicated keys. Maybe never. It took forever to find this stupid thing. Anyway, I have a plan, and it requires a map.

“And Adam, how did he take it?”

“Honestly, I think he was relieved.”

Dad nods slowly and looks back at his work. That’s one thing about my dad. He knows when to stop prying. We work together in silence for a few minutes, until I start wrestling with the folds of the map again.

We’ve basically arrived at the point in my homeschooling career where I’m on my own. We sit at the table every morning for a couple of hours together, just out of habit. But I don’t really need my dad anymore. And when it comes to subjects like calculus and physics, he has absolutely no idea what I’m doing. Mom and Dad are both baffled by my ability to solve complicated equations. Neither one of them is any good at math. Mom asked me once how I do it. We were at the thrift store and I was calculating discounts on a big stack of clothes we had found. She asked me how I manage to do this in my head, without a calculator or even a pencil and paper. I thought for a minute and then I told her. The solutions form in my mind—I can see them. It’s that simple. She looked at me like I was an alien from outer space, and then we went back to searching through the racks at the thrift store.

“What’s the map for?” Dad asks. “History project?”

“I finished that project,” I say. “I’m actually working on something else.”

I measure a distance of twenty miles with the key, and then I expand the compass to that width and place it on the table. I find the point on the map where Amanda and Sally’s house would be and mark it with a red dot.

Dad stands up and looks over my shoulder. He watches as I stick the compass needle into the red dot and direct the pencil tip northeast—toward Snellville. I feel relief to see that its radius stretches across Stone Mountain Park. There are nice hiking trails there—if you know where to go to avoid the crowds.

I came up with the idea while driving home from Dahlonega, after Phoenix told me about his “American Dream.” I decided to give Phoenix a map of all the places he can hike and spend time in nature, within his twenty-mile radius. I want to go with him, to take him places. I want for him to see things, experience things, with me. I hope he wants that too.

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