“You don’t?” Maisie asked.
“Not at all. And here’s the thing: she will be there.” Patrick rolled his head to see if they were listening. “In the kitchen where she cooked for you, in your rooms where she kissed you good night. Some days you’ll hate it. It will feel torturous. You’ll be reminded of the bad things. She’ll be both so close and so far. But other days you’ll like it. She’ll be a shadow on the wall, or a reflection of the light, and she’ll look healthy and you’ll be so happy to see her. And it will feel like a great big hug.”
“How do you know this thtuff?” Grant muttered. Patrick was happy for confirmation he was awake.
“Because I do.” Because of Joe.
“Will you come visit so you can see her, too?”
Patrick fluttered his feet, as if miming timid steps into an uncertain future. “We’ll see.” He was acutely concerned with the kids’ ghostly presence in his own house after they returned to Connecticut. The warmth of a snuggle at bedtime. The faint echo of a laugh from the pool. He refocused his attention on the sky and tried hard to nudge such thoughts from his mind. “You know who will be there? Your dad.” Nice pivot, he thought.
Maisie interrupted him. “Grant, you look this way, and I’ll look that way.”
“I don’t want to.”
“GUP!” Maisie bellowed. She didn’t want to miss a single flash in the sky.
“Let him do as he will, upside-down cake.” All summer he had failed to find the right nickname for Maisie; her preference for the pineapple float provided the only inspiration.
“I don’t like it when you call me that.”
“Really?” The name was growing on Patrick, but he was also happy to let it go. “Is there anything you want to do for your dad when he comes home?”
Grant rocked back and forth on the Pegasus. “We could draw him pictures. Or make a thign.”
“A what? A sign?” Patrick scratched his chin. His skin felt tight, dry from too much time in the pool. In the heat it reminded him of how he felt as a child after a day in the ocean, the salt tightening his skin just enough to imagine he was trapped inside someone else’s body. “‘Welcome Home’？ That sort of thing? That’s not a bad idea.” A few bars of Ace of Base ran through his brain. I thaw the thign.
“We still have the Christmas tree up. Maybe we could have Christmas again!”
Patrick smiled; Christmas was in danger of becoming a year-round event. “Welcome-home presents are fun, Maisie. We could put them under the tree without having it be a full-blown holiday.”
“But then we don’t get presents!” Grant was not falling for this.
“You just got presents! You both got presents all summer. Bikes, swim attire, pool floats, wisdom, time with me. A DOG. You must be so sick of presents by now.”
“MORE PRESENTS!” Grant hollered, and Marlene looked up from her nap and yipped, as if she understood the suggestion that she was herself not enough.
“If you get any more gifts you won’t be able to take them all home with you,” Patrick argued, hoping reason would win out. “You’ll have to leave them here with me, and then they’ll be mine.”
Grant took his hand. “No, mine. For when we come visit you.” The accompanying look he gave his uncle was so sincere, Patrick felt his heart swell three sizes, smashing some invisible Grinch-like box that had kept him stunted until now.
“We could get a cake,” Maisie suggested. “And make a wish for Dad.”
“Jeez, you kids like all the greatest hits.” Yet, cake was a celebration food—it set a positive tone. And it was a whole lot easier than another round of presents. Sometimes the greatest hits are great for a reason. “Okay. But your father likes pie.”
Maisie’s face soured. Even with her unorthodox taste in desserts, pie seemed like a bridge too far. “Pie is hot. Too hot for summer.”
“Not key lime.”
“Chocolate!” Grant yelled.
“Okay, good grief. One of every cold pie we can find and then everyone will have a choice. Satisfied?”
“Thnowman pie.”
“Snowman pie? What’s that?”
Grant shrugged, it just sounded good.
“Here’s what I was thinking,” Patrick offered. “We could do a number.”
“What number?” Grant asked. “Eleven?”
“An eleven o’clock number, bravo!”