Page 93 of Roadrunner

“Is Riley going to be my stepfather?”

I looked at Riley.

Riley looked at the road.

I turned in my seat. “What made you think about that?”

Arthur shrugged one shoulder. “Just wondering.”

“We haven’t talked about that yet,” I said carefully. “It’s early.”

He looked out the window. “Okay,” he said.

“What would you think?” I asked. “If that happened.”

He was quiet for a while, long enough that I thought he’d let it go. Then, while still looking out the window, he continued. “Better than Joshua, probably.”

“Arthur.”

“What? You asked.” He picked at a loose thread on his sleeve, not looking up. “Riley actually listens when I’m talking. Like he’s actually going to remember it later.” He shrugged, small, like the shrug was doing some of the work his voice didn’t want to do. “And he came to my school thing last week. Joshua never came to one. Not one time.” He glanced at me sideways. “I’m not trying to be mean about it.”

“He was your father,” I said. “Whatever else—”

“He wasn’t, though,” Arthur said, and his voice wobbled a little on it, like the sentence had surprised him on the way out. “Not really. He was just. He was there. Sometimes.” He went back to the thread on his sleeve. “Riley’s more like an actual dad. I think.” He looked at me, quick, checking. “Is that bad? To say?”

I didn’t have an answer ready. I found I didn’t want to correct him anymore either.

“No,” I said, and meant it more than I expected to. “It’s not a bad thing to say.”

He was quiet for a moment, like the words had settled something, and turned back to the window, and didn’t say much else the rest of the way home.

Riley’s hands were on the wheel. Still. He was looking at the road and I could see nothing of his face from where I sat.

I faced forward.

The desert went by on both sides.

I thought about what Arthur had just said and what he didn’t know he’d said and what it meant and what it might mean and I looked at the road ahead and said nothing for the rest of the drive.

Some things settle in their own time.

This one was settling whether I was ready or not.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Alex

Now

We fell into a rhythm.

Weekday mornings were mine and Arthur’s. School runs. Homework at the kitchen table. Martina’s cooking filling the house at dinnertime.

Weekends belonged to all of us.

Saturday mornings Riley came over with coffee and we sat on the back porch while the desert warmed up. Arthur appeared eventually, always with a question he’d apparently been saving since the last time he saw Riley. Riley answered every one. Completely. Without shortchanging them.

Sunday was Della’s.