Trident Meet Up

When the kids are back in town, as they both were last week, we try to hit some favorite family haunts together, and Trident Booksellers and Café is always at the top of the list. One of our first discoveries upon moving here, this restaurant within a bookstore would fit right into Portland, so it feels a bit like home to us. Good food and good books – what more could we ask for? When my sister’s youngest son from California was visiting colleges a few years ago we took him there and I think the Lemon Ricotta French Toast with Blueberry Sauce was a deciding factor in his decision to come to college in Boston.

So last week we arranged to meet up with that same nephew at Trident. We hopped on the subway and popped up onto Newbury St. into the beginning of what turned out to be a nasty snowstorm. Undeterred, we soon ducked into the warmth of Trident Booksellers and maneuvered our down-padded bulk in the narrow aisles, unwinding scarves and shaking flakes off fleece hats. Through my steamy glasses I caught a glimpse of my nephew’s big smile and we descended on the tiny table he had snagged.  Peeling off our winter layers and piling them up on the seats around us, we wedged ourselves into the wooden booth. I had lots of things I was eager to ask him, but only one question got out – “How was the midterm?” – before the conversation took on a life of its own. The three cousins filled the air with the chatter of young people who have known each other forever: classes, commiserations, concerts and my nephew’s plan to visit his brother in Providence and my daughter in DC, and did my son want to come? It made me smile.

When we moved to Boston from Oregon a few years ago we set up a kind of family outpost for the younger generation who were migrating eastwards for college: my own son in New York, my sister’s son in Rhode Island and eventually his brother here. For my nephews it meant warm meals, willing ears, a refuge from the dorms, and Thanksgiving with my husband’s welcoming family: a sense of home when home was too far to get to easily. For my family and me, for whom our new world still felt disconnected and not quite right, having the boys here made this feel more like home.

My daughter’s senior year of high school was my nephew’s first year of college, 3000 miles from his home but 1 ½ miles from ours. The two cousins got to hang out together, giving my daughter a taste of college life and easing my nephew’s transition. Born 4 months apart, these two were the youngest of the group of 5 cousins: 4 boys and then one girl. My sister and I, children in tow, visited each other and our parents as often as we could so that the cousins would grow up close to each other. In those early years, the babies resented being lumped together and ignored by the older ones, and all of the boys regarded the little girl in their midst as something of a foreign species until, tomboy that she was, she proved she could wrestle and keep up in other such manly pursuits.

Watching the rumble tumble of the kids, my mom and sister and I used to amuse ourselves with dreams of their futures, of the time when the sweet soft faces of the boys would grow beards, when they all would bring home significant others, when they would go off to college. We pictured the two babies at 19 in college, meeting up for coffee, exchanging stories about their friends and siblings and life in general. The picture we painted was so clear, it was as if we could see into the future, to this crowded little booth on Newbury St. in Boston.

There are so many hopes and dreams we have for our children when they are young, and so many we let go of as the children grow up and fulfill dreams of their own. But once in awhile – and I am so grateful for this – life can surprise you with a dream that has become a reality: happy cousins chatting around a small table in a warm café.