“Boyth can have girl’th names?”
“Why not? Girls can have boy’s names. Plenty of girls are named Alex or Frankie or Sam. A girl named Charlie?” Patrick put his fingers to his lips and gestured a chef’s kiss. “It’s the Wild West we’re living in.”
Patrick discreetly glanced at Maisie, careful not to make a production out of it. She wasn’t amused, but she also didn’t seem angry anymore. And she was eating. He had been worried a hunger strike might be coming next, so that in itself was a small triumph.
“Is that why you like Emily?”
“I don’t like Emily.” Patrick reached for his phone in his pocket. “Who’s Emily?”
“Emily. From the party. You made us watch him on YouTube.”
“EMORY?!” Patrick was appalled.
“Oh,” Grant said. “I thought his name was Emily.”
Patrick checked his phone for the time. And there it was. Right on his lock screen like an emotional hate crime. An annual calendar reminder from another life.
Everything was suddenly clear.
Patrick dismissed the reminder before tucking his phone in his pocket; one thing at a time. For now, he wanted to put this tension behind them once and for all. “Maisie? You look like your mom this morning.”
She froze midbite and looked up from her plate.
“You do. You really do. I think it’s the way the sun hits you just right.” Patrick smiled and brushed the hair from her face, the way he used to with Sara. “More and more every day.”
The table next to him, a couple in their sixties who reminded him of his parents, got up to leave. The woman, wearing those three-quarter-length pants that flatter exactly no one, handed him a folded napkin with a smile. Her husband, silk golf shirt, palm frond pattern, waved politely. Grant waved back.
Patrick held the napkin, unsure what to do with it. He was terrified it was another stark notification like the one on the phone. Something that should be clear, if he weren’t so distracted and self-absorbed. He held the napkin below the table, away from Grant, and slowly opened it. Inside was a note.
Every parent has these days. You’re very good with them. Your breakfast is on us.
“What does it say?” Maisie asked. She never missed a trick.
Patrick folded the napkin and slipped it in his pocket. You’re very good with them. It was all he could do not to cry. He looked over his shoulder to thank the couple, but they were already passing the windows outside. He watched, hoping to catch their attention, until they were out of sight. Alas, they never turned back.
“It says we should go see the dinosaurs. So eat up.”
Grant dropped his fork on his plate and threw his hands in the air in triumph. “YETH!”
“They may be extinct now, but you never know.”
Sometimes things come back to life.
TWENTY-FOUR
The rain started midafternoon in torrential sheets and caught Patrick and the kids off guard; three hundred and fifty days of sun a year—why bother to ever check the weather? Each drop landed with a deafening thwack against his flat roof, the symphony outside a perfect score to the mood within. Patrick glanced out the front window. The gravel in his yard was already disappearing under a thin lake, the ground underneath too dry, too hard to absorb such a downpour quickly. Earlier in the day, he ordered a cake to be delivered. Now he wondered if it would show up at all.
Grant twirled into the room, his own cyclone. “Do you think I should write a letter to the toof fairy?” He had to yell to be heard above the rain.
“No.”
“But I want to!” Grant climbed on his uncle’s leather chair to look out the window, too.
“What are you, pen pals? You don’t need to write her.”
“Why not?” Grant implored.
“Because you don’t have any loose teef.”
Grant placed his hands on his hips defiantly. “Yeah, but I’m gonna. I’m worried she might forget me.”
Patrick stifled a laugh. “She won’t.”
“She will!”
“Won’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
Patrick pried his eyes away from the front walk to focus squarely on Grant. “You’re unforgettable, that’s why.”
Grant beamed, then stuffed his fingers in his ears. “THE RAIN ITH LOUD!”
Patrick agreed that it was, then added, “Feet off my chair,” even though Grant couldn’t hear.
The cake finally arrived while Maisie was in her room with the door closed and Grant was in the backyard. Marlene erupted like Vesuvius at the knock at the door, her hot, angry barking blanketing the entire house with panic. Patrick picked her up in order to answer the door; she wriggled the entire time to get free. Where was the silent-film star he brought home from the kennel? Everyone, it seemed, was changing.