Page 64 of Reeves

"Here, watch." Benjy picks up a crawdad and demonstrates the twisting motion needed to separate the tail from the head. "You twist like this, then pinch the tail."

He's teaching Reeves how the rest of us live. My five-year-old is teaching this Navy SEAL how to eat crawdads.

Reeves follows Benjy's instructions carefully, brow furrowed in concentration. When he successfully extracts a piece of tail meat, Benjy cheers.

"Perfect! Now try the corn. PopPop puts the same seasoning on everything."

The conversation flows around the table while everyone eats. Dad asks Reeves polite questions about New Orleans. Mom comments on the weather and whether the summer tourist season will be busy. Normal dinner table talk that doesn’t press too hard.

But it’s Benjy who dominates the conversation, jumping between topics with five-year-old logic. Pirates lead to boats, which lead to questions about whether Reeves has ever been on a submarine.

I catch Mom’s eye across the table. She gives me a small smile that says she’s paying attention, too.

Dad wipes his hands on a napkin and leans back in his chair.

“So,” he says calmly, looking straight at Reeves, “how long are you planning on being in Bay St. Louis?”

The room goes quiet.

Benjy doesn’t notice. He’s still focused on his crawdads.

But Reeves does.

And so do I.

FIFTEEN

Reeves

The March:The procession does not pause. To stop moving is to let the weight settle somewhere it cannot be carried back out again.

The crawdad boilis winding down around me, and I realize I never actually sat down to eat.

At some point, Lydia shoved a beer into my hand and told me to make myself useful by staying out of her kitchen. Benjy talked enough for three people, Charli mostly kept quiet, and Ben cracked shells with the kind of patience that makes it look like he could sit at this table until midnight and never once think about leaving.

Somehow, I am still here.

That hadn’t been the plan.

I should have stayed long enough to be polite, thanked them for dinner, and gotten back on the road to New Orleans before dark. Instead, I’ve spent the last hour leaning against the kitchen counter, listening to Benjy explain why pirates would always go after the shiniest shells while Lydia cleared plates around us like I belonged in the room.

The whole thing moves with an easy rhythm. Benjy climbs in and out of his chair. Ben reaches for another napkin. Lydia folds up the newspaper under the empty crawdad shells and tells Charli to leave the dishes alone. Nobody is rushing. Nobody is checking the time.

Charli finally looks up when Lydia nudges her away from the sink, and for a second, her attention locks in on me instead. It’s quick, almost nothing, but my stomach drops before I can do a damn thing about it.

This is the kind of life she always wanted. A place where people stay because there is no reason to leave.

My hand tightens around the beer bottle, and the movement sends a sharp line of pain up my arm to my shoulder. What the fuck?

I need to go.

The thought is absolute and immediate. Not because anyone here has made me unwelcome. If anything, that is the problem.

I set the bottle down on the counter and push away from it.

“I’d better hit the road.”

The words come automatically, a protective instinct kicking in before I sink too far into a comfort that doesn’t belong to me.