For a fleeting moment, Sara had punched a hole in the sky. Or perhaps it was Sara and Joe both—maybe it took two spirits, and that’s why it was so bright.
The night fell quiet again, until Grant started to snore. Maisie chuckled. She reached an arm out for her uncle again, and he reached back. They clasped hands, neither willing to tear their eyes from the heavens. With a hiss and a click that startled them both, water rained down on them like tears.
“What the . . .” Patrick began, but it was simply the lawn sprinklers set to go off late at night, when the sun wouldn’t evaporate the water before it could seep into the ground. “RUN!” They charged across the slippery grass, the sprinklers finding new ways to twist and spit. Grant pulled a croquet wicket out with his foot from a game they had played the day before as Marlene shot through his legs.
“It’th like the toilet!” Grant squealed with unyielding delight.
“IT’S A WASHLET!” Patrick protested.
He grabbed the day’s pool towels hanging over the outdoor furniture to dry. He wrapped both kids in a single giant towel and pulled them close. They quivered, but more from profound excitement than being cold.
“You know you are loved here, too. Right? Your dad loves you and he’ll be back soon. Your grandparents love you. Marlene loves you. Aunt Clara loves you.”
“And you love uth,” Grant said.
Bundled like this in an enormous towel, they looked like fragile, conjoined twins. “Yeah, I love you, too.”
The children shivered and smiled.
“But don’t tell anyone,” Patrick instructed. “It’ll be our secret.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Maisie and Grant crouched beneath the window, sparks of energy, each igniting reactions in the other while stifling nervous screams. They crawled to the door to avoid detection as Greg exited his cab and made his way up the walk, then shrieked as they opened it, Grant stumbling backward, forgetting to let go of the knob. “WELCOME HOME!”
Patrick scooped up Marlene as the kids threw their arms and legs around their father, squirming tentacles searching for a place to attach and never again let go. Patrick hung back, already displaced, a substitute without a classroom now that the teacher had returned. Guncles may rule, but fathers know best, as evidenced by the deep, heaving sobs the three of them shared, Greg burying his face into their tight huddle. Patrick held back his own tears. He thought perhaps things were better, that he had done some good this summer, but their pain was raw, visceral, and had this whole time been lurking, a mantle just under the crust. Perhaps he hadn’t accomplished much at all.
When Greg looked up from their hug, his eyes were drawn to the center of the room. “You have a Christmas tree!” he exclaimed, wiping tears from his eyes as they darted from the tree to his brother and back to the tree again. “And it’s pink.”
“We left it up for you!” Grant explained, raising just as many questions as it answered.
“Thank you?” Greg turned to Patrick for further explanation, but his brother simply shrugged as he set the dog on the floor. Marlene cartoonishly charged in place until her legs gained traction, and then plowed forward to be part of the hug, jumping three times on her hind legs for permission to enter the scrum. “Who’s this?”
“That’s Marlene!” Maisie said excitedly. “Her name was something else, but GUP changed it.”
“I see.” Greg patted the dog on her head, with a formality that struck Patrick as amusing. His brother had always carried a slight fear of dogs, even smaller ones like Marlene. “Did he change your names, too?”
“I’m Grantelope,” Grant said, and he growled. What he was imitating was anyone’s guess, although who’s to say what noise an antelope （or cantaloupe） makes when no one’s around?
“It’s nice to meet you, Marlene.”
Maisie hugged Marlene tight and said, “This is our dad.” Marlene squirmed and wiggled until she was free, but instead of running for safety, stayed right in the thick of their embrace.
“Did you get us any presents?” Grant hung on to his father’s arm as he tried to stand.
“It wasn’t the kind of place where I could really shop. But I’ll tell you what . . . We’ll get presents when we get home.”
Maisie jumped in. “We have presents for you!”
“And cake!” Grant added.
“Pie, silly,” Maisie corrected.
“Oh, yeah. PIE!”
“You do? Boy, am I lucky. Were you kids always this nice?”