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I should leave it there. I don’t.

“Marry me again. A real one.”

I’ve got the rest of it lined up behind that. Her mother on a plane. Tova in whatever she wants. A cake that didn’t come from a grocery store.

“Yes,” she says, before I get to any of it.

“I wasn’t finished.”

“You were going to tell me where everyone sits.”

I was.

“Colt.”

“Yeah.”

“You asked me.”

“I did.”

She’s most of the way under, and it comes out slower than the rest of her sentences do.

“Keep doing that.”

The pillow I keep behind my shoulder is on the floor again.

I leave it there.

Chapter fifty

Colt

We talk to Tova over breakfast. She says okay, finishes her cereal, and asks if I can pick her up after school.

I’m early enough that the pickup line hasn’t started moving. Tova is outside the school doors with three other kids, far enough away that I can see mouths moving and hear none of it through the windshield. One of the boys says something. Tova answers. Another kid laughs.

My hand finds the door handle. Tova shifts her backpack higher, says something else, and walks toward the curb with a girl beside her. I leave the handle where it is.

By the time the line moves and I reach her, the other girl has peeled off toward a white SUV. Tova opens my passenger door, gets in, and looks around.

“Mamma’s truck is way cooler.”

I stare at her. “This is a G-Wagon.”

“I know.”

“That information should have improved your answer.”

“It didn’t.”

She drops her backpack between her feet and reaches for the seat belt, and when she turns I see the cap.

Burgundy. Stampede. A 27 stitched small on the side. It’s mine, and it had been hanging on the hook by the garage door since last season. It hasn’t been on that hook for three weeks.

I start driving. Tova adjusts the air vent toward her face.

“I elbowed him today.”