Page 79 of Roadrunner

“It’s very brown,” she said.

“You’ll get used to it,” I said.

“I won’t.”

She went back inside.

Arthur looked at me.

I looked at him.

We both laughed.

Riley came the next day.

He knocked. I opened the door. He stood on the front step with his hands in his pockets and looked at me and then past me into the house.

“How was the drive?”

“Long,” I said. “Good. Come in.”

The house was half unpacked. Boxes everywhere. Martina had established the kitchen as her domain and was doing something purposeful in it. The living room was in progress.

Riley looked around. He looked at the boxes. At the kitchen. At the hallway.

Then Arthur appeared from the hallway.

He stopped when he saw Riley.

Riley stopped.

They looked at each other across the length of the room.

I stood between them and said nothing.

“You must be Arthur,” Riley said.

“Yeah,” Arthur said. “I am.”

Arthur looked at him with the directness he’d always had. The kind that didn’t ask permission and didn’t apologize for itself. “Are you Riley?”

“I am.”

“Mom told me about you,” he said.

“Did she?”

“Not much.” He shrugged one shoulder just a little. “But some.”

Riley glanced at me.

I raised my eyebrows.

He looked back at Arthur. “Good to meet you.”

“You, too.” Arthur extended his hand.

Riley looked at the hand. He shook it. Firmly. Two pumps. The way his father had always shaken hands.