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“Jeanette.”
“Given my history with Colleen, Jeanette?”
“I’m sure,” she said, so smoothly that he was immediately suspicious. “So it’d be you both? You and Bryce?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “I could probably sell tickets. Can you work up some plans? I don’t care how much it costs. My cheating bastard husband had to give me a metric ton of money in the divorce. Blood money. Guilt money. Whore money.”
An hour later, he’d drawn a rough plan and given her a ballpark estimate. He and Bryce got into the pickup truck Lucas had rented for the duration.
Joe would be glad about this. It was a start, at the very least, and hopefully Bryce would have some kind of aptitude for construction.
They passed a dirt road. He and Colleen had parked there one night, before they’d both gone off to college. He could still remember the impossible silkiness of her skin, the way her eyes went so big and soft when she—
“Did you see my dad yesterday?” Bryce asked. “He’s feeling a lot better.”
Lucas glanced over at his cousin. “Glad to hear that.” Yes, he’d seen Joe yesterday. He’d been asleep, looking smaller somehow.
Bryce had had a cat when they were teenagers, a scruffy old thing he’d found abandoned near the school. He brought it home and kept it in the spare room over the garage, an unfinished space that held only some boxes of old toys. Didi hated cats. But eventually, Bryce had worn her down; the woman didn’t refuse him much, and the cat was no exception. It was old and battered, but it had a rusty purr that rattled in its throat. Bryce named it Harley, and the cat loved Bryce. Slept on his bed every night. If Bryce wasn’t around, the cat might give Lucas a few head butts, but it was clear he knew where his bread was buttered.
Unfortunately, Harley was old and riddled with health problems, which was probably why someone had dumped him in the first place. Despite the myriad pills Bryce coaxed down Harley’s throat each day, despite the vet warning him that the cat wouldn’t see Christmas, despite the fact that the cat slept more and more and ate less and less, Bryce just didn’t believe the cat was sick. “He wouldn’t purr like this if he didn’t feel good,” he’d say, petting the cat’s head, and it seemed almost true.
Until the day the boys had come home from school and found Harley dead, curled up on Bryce’s bed.
Bryce had been utterly stunned. Lucas had heard him crying at night, despite his advanced age of sixteen.
It didn’t look as if things were going to be much different with Joe. And far, far worse.
“You should spend as much time with him as you can, Bryce,” Lucas said now.
“I already do. I mean, I live there, right?”
“Make sure it’s time well spent. That’s all.”
It would’ve been nice to have been able to do the same with his own father. To have said goodbye, to have held his hand in the last minutes.
But this time, he could be there for Joe. And Bryce, too.
* * *
ONWEDNESDAY, COLLEENstopped by her mother’s house.
Mom had called last night to say she was having Dad’s study redone, and thank the baby Jesus. The tenth anniversary of Dad leaving had really lit a fire under her. First the nude modeling, now redecorating.
Colleen pulled her car onto the street. There was a pickup truck in the driveway and a stack of lumber piled alongside the house, as well as a Dumpster. Carol Robinson’s white Prius was parked on the street, too; Colleen recognized it from the many open houses she’d been to. Mrs. Johnson’s car, too, a monstrous Buick that Mrs. J. (piña colada) tended to drive down the middle of the street, striking fear into the hearts of every living thing.
“Hey, Mom!” Colleen yelled, going into the house. The sound of a power saw ripped through the air, then faded.
“We’re out back!” Mom called.
Colleen pushed through the door to the backyard. Carol, Mom and Mrs. Johnson—she was Mrs. Holland, technically, though no one called her that—sat in lawn chairs and were sipping something pink.
“Hey, ladies!” she said, bending to kiss each one. “What’s going on here?”
“Just a little healthy observation, Colleen dear,” Mrs. J. said. “We’re not dead yet.”
“Grab a chair,” Carol said.
