Page 192 of Reeves

I tuck my phone away again and step back into the yard with him.

“Mom’s coming over,” I tell him.

“Good. She can help with our plan.” His focus doesn’t shift from the ground in front of him.

The sound of tires on gravel carries from the front of the house not long after. I push to my feet, brushing the dirt from my hands as Benjy takes off toward the side gate.

“Mom’s here!” he calls, already halfway around the house.

I follow at an easier pace.

By the time I round the corner, he’s already got her hand, words spilling out faster than she can keep up.

“Mom, Reeves bought a house, and I get to pick my room, and it’s going to be blue, and we’re building a fort, and you have to see it?—”

She looks up at me over his head, her expression still, like she’s trying to place something she wasn’t expecting to find.

“Come see the backyard!” Benjy pulls her around the side before she can say anything else.

I hang back a step as she takes it in. The marsh stretches out behind the house, the dock reaching toward the water. The open yard is marked with the rough lines we carved into the dirt.

“This is where we’re building it,” Benjy says, pointing. “He said we can start this weekend.”

She turns to me then.

“I thought you were moving to New Orleans.”

I meet her eyes. “Benjy lives here. So this is where I’m going to be.”

Her gaze sharpens slightly. “What about Stone Intermodal?”

“I’ll commute.”

She studies me for a second, like she’s waiting for me to say something else, to explain it or soften it.

I don’t.

“You’re going to drive an hour each way,” she says. “Every day.”

“Yes, or work from home some days.”

“Why?”

I hold her gaze. “It makes more sense for me to adjust.”

The words sit between us without anything added to them.

Benjy tugs on my hand, pulling me back toward the dirt. “Can we measure the wood pieces now?”

I glance down at him, then back at her for a brief second before nodding.

“Let’s grab the tape measure.”

FORTY-FIVE

Charli

The Quiet After:The procession is over and the street has gone still. But nothing that walked it came back the same.