Nina pulled her daughter into a hug so tight that Lucia made a noise of protest. Elena got up from the table and put her arms around both of them.
These three generations of women who had loved David Vargas stood in the kitchen, holding each other, and everyone in the room went silent, allowing them that moment.
When the party wound down, they moved to the porch, Nina’s porch, not Claire’s this time. The tide was coming in, the water creeping over the mud, the egrets settling in for the night.
Claire sat in a rocking chair with Greg beside her, not across from her. He had pulled his chair closer without being asked, and their shoulders almost touched.
“This was a good party,” Greg said.
“It was.”
“No fancy napkins.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “No fancy napkins.”
“Better this way, I think.”
Claire looked at him. He was looking out at the marsh, and it occurred to her that his face was softer than it used to be, or maybe it had always been soft, and she had just stopped looking closely enough to see it.
“Yeah, better this way.”
Someone asked a question. Claire wasn’t even sure who, maybe Harper or Nina, maybe Lucia.
“Are we doing it again? Are you doing it again? Year two?”
The three of them looked at each other, Claire, Harper, Nina, sitting on the porch, wine in hand, having just gotten through twelve scary adventures, or at least scary to them.
“We don’t need a pact,” Claire said.
“No, we don’t,” Harper agreed.
“That pact was just our training wheels,” Nina said, “and we don’t need training wheels anymore.”
“But,” Harper said.
“But,” Claire said.
“We should probably still do things that scare us from time to time,” Nina said, “just because.”
“Just because,” Harper agreed.
“Who’s picking the first adventure?” Lucia’s voice came from inside the house, where she was eating leftover flan. “I am. I’m picking. You’re all going to hate it so much.”
“She can’t pick,” Harper said. “She didn’t sign the napkin.”
“The napkin has expired,” Nina said. “New year, new rules.”
“I want new rules,” Lucia called. “Rule one, Abuela has to come.”
Elena’s voice came from the kitchen. “I am seventy-two years old, and I am not jumping out of an airplane.”
“We’re not asking you to jump out of an airplane, Elena,” Nina said.
“Good, because I won’t.”
“We’re just asking you to do one scary thing a month.”
“Oh, nothing scares me. Well, I mean, except maybe the airplane thing.”
