“You should. She loved you very much. What do you think about?”
“I remember when she made us cookies. She let me put the frosting on.”
“I remember that. You had pink frosting all over your face. She took your picture. It’s still on the refrigerator.”
“I think that’s why I remember.” He propped the rod in his lap. “Do you miss her?”
“Of course I do. I loved her very much,” Alex said, holding Josh’s gaze. “What’s going on, Josh?”
“At the party yesterday…” Josh rubbed his nose, hesitating.
“What happened?”
“Most of the moms stayed the whole time. Talking and stuff.”
“I would have stayed if you wanted me to.”
Josh dropped his eyes, and in the silence, Alex suddenly knew what he hadn’t said. “I was supposed to stay, too, wasn’t I. Some parent-child thing.” His tone was more a statement than a question. “But you didn’t want to tell me because I would have been the only dad there, right?”
Josh nodded, looking guilty. “I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
Alex slipped an arm around his son. “I’m not mad,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. I couldn’t be mad at you for that.”
“Do you think Mom would have gone? If she was still here?”
“Of course she would have. She wouldn’t have missed it.”
On the far side of the creek, a mullet jumped and the tiny ripples began moving toward them.
“What do you do when you go out with Miss Katie?” he asked.
Alex shifted slightly. “It’s kind of like what we did at the beach today. We eat and talk and maybe go for a walk.”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with her lately.”
“Yes.”
Josh considered that. “What do you talk about?”
“Just regular stuff.” Alex tilted his head. “And we talk about you and your sister, too.”
“What do you say?”
“We talk about how much fun it is to spend time with you two, and how well you did in school, or how good you are at keeping your room clean.”
“Will you tell her that I didn’t tell you that you were supposed to stay at the party?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No,” he said.
“Then I won’t say anything.”
“Promise? Because I don’t want her to be mad at me.”
Alex raised his fingers. “Scout’s honor. But just so you know, she wouldn’t be mad at you even if I did. She thinks you’re a great kid.”
Josh sat up straighter and began reeling in his line. “Good,” he said. “Because I think she’s pretty great, too.”
The conversation with Josh kept Alex awake that night. He found himself studying the portrait of Carly in his bedroom as he sipped his third beer of the evening.
Kristen and Katie had returned to the house, full of energy and excitement as they showed him the clothes they’d purchased. Surprisingly, Katie had returned nearly half the money, saying only that she was pretty good at finding things on sale. Alex sat on the couch as Kristen modeled an outfit for him, only to vanish back into her bedroom before returning wearing something completely different. Even Josh, who ordinarily wouldn’t have cared in the slightest, set his Nintendo game aside, and when Kristen had left the room, he approached Katie.
“Could you take me shopping, too?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Because I need some new shirts and stuff.”
Afterward, Alex ordered Chinese food and they sat around the table, eating and laughing. At one point during dinner, Katie pulled a leather wristband from her purse and turned toward Josh. “I thought this was pretty cool-looking,” she said, handing it to Josh. His surprise gave way to pleasure as he put it on, and Alex noticed how Josh’s eyes continually flickered toward Katie for the rest of the evening.
Ironically, it was at times like tonight that he missed Carly most. Even though she’d never experienced nights like these as a family—the kids were too young when she died—he found it easy to imagine her being at the table.
Perhaps that was the reason he couldn’t sleep, long after Katie went home and Kristen and Josh were asleep in their beds. Tossing back the covers, he went to the closet and opened the safe he’d installed a few years earlier. In it were important financial and insurance documents, stacked beside treasures from his marriage. They were items that Carly had collected: photos from their honeymoon, a four-leaf clover they’d found while vacationing in Vancouver, the bouquet of peonies and calla lilies she’d carried on