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Sean feels a surge of pride as he flips over the patty already cooking on the grill. Maybe instead of having Burger King for a client, he can get a job behind the counter, he thinks, and almost laughs. “Don’t think you’re going to need those much longer,” he says, indicating Dani’s oversized sunglasses. “Should be getting dark pretty soon.”
“Almost time to get this show on the road.” Nick walks over to the box of fireworks and starts rifling through its contents.
“Have some potato salad,” Olivia says as Dani is smoothing mustard on her burger. “I bought it myself.” She waits for a laugh that doesn’t come.Guess Sean is right about you,she thinks, wishing Dani would remove those big ugly glasses. She’s never liked talking to someone when she can’t see their eyes. “You missed quite the scene,” she confides, waiting for Dani to ask what happened, then continues when she doesn’t. “One minute, everything was fine. The next, total chaos. Julia’s grandson comes walking out of the house carrying this apple pie he made, and suddenly Aiden goes flying through the air, like some crazed aerialist, and tackles him to the ground. Honestly, you had to see it to believe it!” She leans across the table. “I think it has something to do with Heidi. Looks like she and Mark might be—”
“Hey, hey,” Nick interrupts, returning to his wife’s side, his left arm falling heavily across her shoulders. “No gossip allowed.”
“Oh, you’re no fun,” Oliva says.
Dani feels the full weight of her husband’s arm on her shoulders as she does a slow survey of the cul-de-sac, the focus of her gaze obscured by her dark glasses. She watches Ben, Tyler, and Leo as they dart in and out of the street’s growing shadows, notes Mark, his grandmother, and Erin standing silently by the curb, sees Maggie comforting Heidi in the middle of the road. “WhereisAiden?”
“His mommy took him home,” Olivia says.
“So, how’s the burger?” Sean asks.
“Good,” Dani says, although the truth is that she can barely taste it over the lingering taste of dried blood in her mouth.
“Just good?”
“Sorry,” Dani corrects. “It’s wonderful. Best burger in town.”
“Eat up,” Nick tells her.
Dani takes another bite of the burger, willing herself not to gag. All she wants is to go back to her house and crawl into bed, pull the blankets up over her head, and disappear. She doesn’t want to be here, to make mind-numbing small talk with people she barely knows, to watch a bunch of celebratory fireworks light up the night sky.
It might be the Fourth of July, but she has nothing to celebrate.
“Hey, Dad,” Ben calls. “When are we gonna start?”
Nick glances at the others. “What do you say, everybody? We can light a few of the smaller ones now, save the more extravagant ones till it gets darker?”
“Fine by me,” Olivia says.
“Light ’em up,” Sean agrees.
“Yay!” the boys yell, their voices overlapping.
Dani watches Heidi lower herself to the curb in front of Maggie’s house. Even from this distance and through her dark glasses, she has no trouble making out the distraught look on the young woman’s face.
“Hey, there,” a voice says, and Dani turns to see Maggie. “I was wondering where you were.”
Dani tries for a smile, manages only a brief twitch. She glances over her shoulder to where Nick is kneeling over the box of fireworks. “Just couldn’t seem to get movin’.”
“Yeah. Some days are like that.”
“They tell me I missed quite the scene.” Dani looks toward Heidi. “Is she okay?”
“She will be. What about you?”
“Me? I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
Dani’s gaze drops to her feet. “ ’Course I am. Right as rain.”
There is a loudwhooshas a series of Roman candles suddenly explode above their heads.
“Whee!” the boys yell. “Woo-hoo!”
