She giggles and sets it down. “If this is a greenhouse, why are there no plants?”
“That’s because it was a greenhouse,” I tell her. “Past tense. We can’t agree on what it is now. Snooki insists it’s a princess tower.” That earns a smile. “Connor wants a man cave,” I add. “I told him he barely qualifies.”
“And the Dread Pirate Oliver?” she asks, delivering a decisive karate chop to the pillow. “I know what he wants.”
“A pirate ship,” we say in unison.
I grin. “You know my kids so well already.”
A flicker of something crosses her face. Sadness. Gone almost as fast as it appears.
“They’re easy to know,” she says quietly. “They told me their whole life stories while you were gone.”
“All of it?”
“Just the important things,” she says thoughtfully. “That you were gone a lot before.”
“The life of a SEAL.”
“And that you’re back now. And…”
She trails off, and I let her. I’m pretty sure I know where she’s headed, and my heart flutters, bruised and unsteady.
How do you summarize loss? I lost my wife. They lost their mom. We’re still standing. And some days, that has to be enough.
“You’re amazing.” She catches herself, a soft shake of her head. “I mean, it’s amazing,” she murmurs. “All of it. So many possibilities.”
She settles onto the chaise, easing back, her gaze drifting up through the glass ceiling. The night sky stretches overhead, stars scattered like a field of glitter.
While she’s lost in the sky, I glance toward the house.
Movement.
Shadowy figures slip along the side of the property, quiet and precise.
My jaw tightens.
Her breath catches. “Oh.” She lifts a hand. “Look.”
“What?”
She points upward. “Up there.”
I sit beside her, following the line of her finger, just as a streak of light cuts clean across the sky.
She gasps. “A shooting star.”
“Or a death asteroid about to wipe us out like the dinosaurs,” I say.
She smacks my shoulder. “Make a wish.”
“No.”
“Do it, Lumberjack,” she orders. “And you have to close your eyes or it won’t come true.”
“Is that why it never works?”
“Shut up and close your eyes.”
