The wind was supposed to pick up after sunset, but until then, conditions were ideal for canoeing, which was what he would normally be doing right now. He would go when he got home and just make it a shorter outing.
“What would Jude be doing if he were here right now?”
He was startled by the question. Shocked, really. It made him physically jerk a little, and he sloshed some of his drink over the edge of his glass.
But when he sat with the question for a moment, he found he didn’t mind it. He didn’t mind it at all, which was not a familiar sensation, when it came to questions about Jude.
The difference, he was pretty sure, was that it was another good question, another about who Jude had been rather than what had happened to him.
“There’s a broken-down old lawn chair in the corner of the yard there.” She pointed to a chair that was more rust than metal. “You’re welcome to drag it over if you’re brave enough. Is your tetanus shot up to date? I can tell you that I did order some furniture today. So I’m not a total heathen. I just have this weird aversion to cluttering up my new life too fast, you know?”
He knew what she was doing. She thought he didn’t want to answer her question. But instead of asking it again, or making it into a big deal by apologizing for asking it in the first place—that was another thing people often did when he didn’t immediately answer their intrusive questions—she was changing the subject. Letting him off the hook.
He looked out at the yard. Paradoxically, the fact that she wasn’t demanding an answer made him want to give one. “Jude would be lying on the grass on his tummy, babbling. You know how they give you all these lectures about how tummy time is important for babies?” He turned to her, and she nodded. “They make it seem like it’s going to be this terrible thing you’re going to have to force on your kid, but not him. He loved it. I would stick him on his belly and crank up the music, and he’d lie there laughing and kicking his legs and rocking out.”
He huffed a shaky exhalation. That was the longest thing he’d said aloud about Jude in four years.
“What kind of music did he like?”
Another good question. A great question, actually. “Any kind. He wasn’t picky. Music instantly made him happy. His mom used to play him kid music, like Raffi and stuff?” She nodded. “Which was fine. Nothing against Raffi. Raffi’s a cool dude. But I was on this secret mission to get Jude to like the Beatles.”
“The Beatles are much better than Raffi.”
“Right? And I think it was working. His mom went back to work when he was three months old. I was doing the rest of the parental-leave year, so he spent more time with me than with her. I’d stick Sgt. Pepper on, and he’d get all squealy.”
“Ha! Suck it, Raffi!”
He brought his glass to his lips only to find it empty. She noticed. “Let me get you a refill.”
He should decline. He should go home. He had canoeing plans.
But he didn’t want to go home. Because, to his utter shock, he wanted to keep talking about Jude. He headed for the door. “I’ll do it.”
“Bring the bottle out,” she called after him.
He stood in the kitchen for a moment, contemplating what was about to happen. Taking stock of the physical sensations in his body. He had words inside him, words where there were usually none, and they were lapping against the edges of his physical self, like waves against the shore at the cove.
The interesting thing was these weren’t the waves he was used to. In his experience, when the waves overtook him, they didn’t lap. They weren’t gentle. And they always won.
This was not that.
He was clumsy as he fumbled with the bourbon bottle, and he had to concentrate on his steps as he went back outside. This time, he sat down—next to her on the edge of the deck. His hand shook as he topped up her drink.
He waited for the waves—the bad ones—to crash over him. They did not. They just kept rhythmically but not punishingly lapping against his insides, seeking a way out. So he opened his mouth and said it.
“Jude died of the flu.”
She did not react with over-the-top dismay as most people did. She nodded grimly