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I turn to walk out, but he calls my name.
“Yes, sir?” I reply.
“You need to tell that oldest girl. Soon.”
“Yes, sir,” I reply. And I will. I just need to find the right time.
“Take my golf cart,” he says. “If you need it.”
No one drives Mr. Jacobson’s golf cart but Mr. Jacobson. “Thanks,” I mutter, even though I know I won’t use it.
I leave the house, collecting all the now-empty jars to carry up to Jake and Katie’s. I walk slowly down the path toward “the big house,” which is what we all called the Jacobsons’ house when we were younger. The crickets and the bullfrogs are my only companions. The night air is chilly but not cold, and I can’t help but stop and think about how good it feels to be alive. To be here, right this minute–it’s the best.
I knock softly at Jake and Katie’s kitchen door, and I can see Katie is startled as she turns toward me and sees me through the window. She has one hand full of empty hot cocoa packets when she opens the door. “Everything okay?” she asks, her brow furrowing.
I set the jars on her kitchen counter. “Well, I heard there was a blanket fort. Didn’t want to miss it.”
She looks beyond me. “Where’s Miles?”
“Mr. Jacobson volunteered to babysit.”
Her mouth falls open. “He did what?”
“He pretty much kicked me out of my own house, pulled a paperback book out of his back pocket, and sat down next to Miles’s crib.”
“Pop’s such an old softie,” she says fondly, as her lips tip up into a grin. “He has this hard shell, but deep inside he’s a pot of bubbling mush.”
“I’ll tell him you said so,” I tease.
“Don’t you dare!” She slaps my shoulder playfully. “The kids are in there.” She nods toward the living room. “My little ones are in their beds. And Gabby went to bed. But the others are all in there with Jake.”
“Got room for me?”
She smiles. “Go check.” She motions me forward with her hands.
I walk into the room to find the biggest, ugliest blanket fort I have ever seen built right in the middle of the living room. The blankets are strung from wall to wall with clothespins hooked to two-by-fours. My two girls are sharing an air mattress, Alex and Jake are sharing another, and Trixie is on a third air mattress, with her big dog pressed against her side. Jake must have turned on a star projector because the ceiling of the tent is filled with constellations.
“And that one is piggly-wiggly,” I hear Jake say, and giggles erupt.
“There’s no such thing as piggly-wiggly,” I say quietly as I squat down at the foot of the mattress my girls are on.
“It does kind of look like a pig, Daddy,” Kerry-Anne says.
“You guys got room for me in there?” I ask. They make a hole between them and I slide into it, and we stare up at the fort’s ceiling shoulder to shoulder. Both girls have damp hair and they smell like lavender shampoo and hot cocoa.
Jake makes up a few more constellation names as all the kids start to yawn, struggling to stay awake. Then, finally, the room is quiet.
“I’m glad you came by,” Jake says. His voice isn’t more than a rumble in the stillness of the blanket fort.
“Go sleep with your wife, Jake,” I tell him. “I heard from a reputable source that you snore like a train.”
He snorts out a laugh. “Pop has never been called a reputable source.”
“Go to bed, Jake,” I say again.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” I grab part of Kerry-Anne’s blanket and cover up with it. I yawn, the trials of the day finally catching up with me.
