Grant instantly perked up. “I want one!”
“Me too!”
“Do you think I’m stopping you?” Patrick pushed the cotton candy to their side of the table so they could tear off the makings for mustaches. He tucked his under his nostrils, and he could feel it melting the littlest bit against his warm skin and the room smelled suddenly sweet, a spun sugar wormhole opening, beckoning, transporting him back to a happier time.
“Look at me!” Grant hollered.
“I am looking at you.” Patrick felt like an old-timey railroad baron, his voice affected by the snarl he projected to keep his mustache in place. He nodded to Maisie to make certain she knew he was watching her, too. “Okay, let me get my phone.”
Patrick opened his camera and his finger paused without selecting video. “Wait, wait, wait. Let’s take a selfie for your dad.” He pushed his chair back, careful not to disturb Marlene, and slid around between them. He crouched and put his right arm around Grant and held the phone out in front of them. “Squeeze in!” They were cheek-to-cheek, and for a moment Patrick’s heart skipped—for a fraction of a second it actually felt like it stopped beating—and he took in a sharp breath of air. It was so, he didn’t know—saccharine. And yet deeply genuine, profound; he felt something he hadn’t in a long, long time. He closed his eyes.
I love you, he said silently in his head, to himself, to the kids, to Joe, to Sara, to no one. To everyone.
“Uncle Patrick!”
He blinked his eyes open and fumbled with the camera like he was caught, as if everyone in the restaurant had been reading his mind.
He’d never felt more exposed.
“Say bananas!”
“NO!” Grant yelled.
“Say cotton candy, then.” This seemed more agreeable.
“COTTON CANDY!”
He snapped the photo, a keeper on the first try. He swung around back to his chair and looked at the picture. It was deceptive, a perfect moment of happiness in the middle of an otherwise tense meal; three sneers employed to hold their pink facial hair in place, when in fact it was the first time in days they were smiling. It was also artful; a column with luminescent tile perfectly captured the light, blotting out the disapproving woman behind them with blues and turquoises and pinks that picked up the color of their mustaches. He looked back in his phone to find his last text chain with Greg, scrolled and scrolled until at last there it was. Their last text, before Sara died, about something inconsequential—a pictorial in National Geographic about a climber who free-scaled El Capitan; Greg mentioned planning a future trip with the kids to Yosemite. And then . . . nothing. As if he were silenced along with Sara. Patrick attached the photo and hovered his finger over send. Was Greg even in possession of his phone? And if he was, why hadn’t he texted? Why hadn’t he checked in to make sure everything was going okay?
“Do a video!” It was Grant. His mustache slipped and he caught it just in time.
Patrick placed his sunglasses on his nephew, then added a pinch of cotton candy on each side where the glasses connected with his ears to make sideburns. Grant laughed and Maisie looked on in amazement. “You look like Martin Van Buren.”
“Who’s Martin Van Buren?” Maisie asked.
“Who’s Rip Van Winkle? Who’s Dick Van Patten? No one really knows.” He then grabbed the top third of their dessert and placed it like a bun on Maisie’s head. “Okay. Now you’re ready.”
The kids twittered and giggled.
“Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“We’re going to talk about our favorite desserts.”
Grant nodded his enthusiastic agreement; his uncle’s glasses slid half an inch down his nose and he tilted his head back to hold them in place, giving the camera a perfect view up his nostrils.
“Well, I’m not one to chase trends, but baking shows are very hot right now. Okay! Aaaand. ACTION.”
Patrick worked overtime to contain his smile as he hit record.
THIRTEEN
Patrick took one look at Cassie and blurted, “No, no, no, no, no” on repeat, as if a cosmic crisis were bearing down and he had the ability to stop it with the sheer force of his command. “This is a party.”
The trepidation was apparent on Cassie’s face, as she hesitated to even step inside. Patrick could see she thought this was a mistake—the party hadn’t even begun and she was clearly panic-stricken that she’d done something wrong. “I’m well a-aware it’s a party,” she stammered. “I put together the guest list. And hired the bartender. And the valet.”