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“Well, he’s kind of a picky eater….” Maggie watches the boy’s face fill with alarm. “Oh, you meanthatkind of fish! I’m sorry. Yes, Erin told me all about your amazing fish. A betta? Is that right?”
“He can do tricks….”
“Tyler,” his father admonishes. “Let Mrs. McKay take her groceries inside.”
“Hey, kid, catch,” Mark says, gently tossing Tyler the ball.
Tyler catches it and looks toward his father for approval, but Nick is no longer paying attention.
“Here comes another car,” someone shouts, as Olivia’s car approaches from the main street.
Once again, everyone scurries out of the way, allowing Olivia to pull into the small cul-de-sac. She pulls into her driveway, using her remote to open her garage door and parking beside her husband’s car. “The damnedest thing just happened,” she whispers to Sean as he’s helping her with the groceries. “Both my credit and debit cards were denied in Publix. If it hadn’t been for Maggie…”
“Maggie?”
“Our neighbor,” she says, waving to Maggie as she’s about to disappear inside her house. “She happened to be there and offered to put our groceries on her card. You wouldn’t happen to have two hundred dollars on you, would you, so I can pay her back?”
“Are you kidding?”
Olivia notes that the color has all but drained from her husband’s face. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’s a mistake. I’ll clear it up with the bank on Monday. Hey,” she says to the small crowd. “How about I go inside and make us some lemonade?”
The children respond with a chorus of cheers and “all rights.”
“Lemonade sounds fabulous,” says Heidi.
“And I have some wonderful chocolate chip cookies my grandson made just this morning,” Julia tells them. “I’ll go get them.”
“I believe I may have just died and gone to heaven,” Nick says. “Tyler, go upstairs and see what’s keeping your mother. She won’t want to miss this.”
Tyler immediately starts running toward his house.
“Leave the ball,” his father instructs.
“Sorry,” Tyler says, dropping it.
Ben runs over to pick it up, then throws it to Mark, who, once again, throws it toward Heidi.
“Looks like someone has a crush,” Aiden says to his wife, extending his arms in front of her to catch it.
“What? No. Don’t be silly,” Heidi says, laughing.
Aiden hurls the ball back at Mark, the ball whizzing by his head to land in Julia’s small patch of front lawn. One of Olivia’s twins runs to retrieve it.
“Easy there, big guy,” Mark says. “Don’t want to break a window.”
“You okay?” Heidi asks her husband, laying a protective hand across his arm. The air is hot and humid, and Aiden isn’t very good with either.
“Yeah, fine.”
Behind her, the twins are fighting over the ball, their voices raised.
Heidi watches Aiden wince. He isn’t very good with loud voices.
“Sure is getting hot,” Mark says, running over to introduce himself. “Mark Fisher, Julia’s grandson.”
“This is Aiden, my husband,” Heidi says.
“I understand you gave my wife weed,” Aiden says, his voice flat, expressionless.
