She started reading it to us in the mornings that spring. We crammed onto the couch, all four of us, pushing in at the sides, vying for a spot next to her and waiting for our daily dose of adventure. She did all the voices and made up tunes to each song. I always sat to her right, because although I wasn’t the oldest, I was the best reader. It was my job to pick up the book and keep reading when her voice softly lulled off and her eyes closed, which they did on a daily basis. She’d nap as I read out to my sister and brothers, my voice rising over her humming breath.

She didn’t stop our daily reading when we started living out of the van. As dad drove, she’d sit in the front seat, half turned to project to the back of “Clifford,” our red 16 passenger. As the rain pounded on the roof and my dad white knuckled across glassy lanes of traffic, she practically yelled about Bilbo’s love for root vegetables and a consistent homey lifestyle.

When the air conditioning broke in Wyoming and the heat swelled, stifling out good humor and the childish sense of adventure we had about the road trip, she reawakened it with three giant squabbling trolls that tied us up, threatening to eat us. By the time Gandalf rode in and and the sun rose, the temperature was dropping. The wind blew through cracked windows and we were happy.

Then dad dropped us off at Grandma’s trailer by the lake and left to take summer classes. We laid in the sun and ate boiled hot dogs for lunch and listed to Mom read The Hobbit every afternoon.

Bilbo rode with eagles and inside of barrels. We burned our shoulders in the sun and perfected out cannon-balls off the dock with our dogs. He bantered with kings and dragons. We froze racing to the bottom of the lake and went to Dairy Queen with Grandma when Mom and Dad went house hunting. He had an adventure. So did we that summer. And when he went home, we did too.