She let that sit. I could almost hear her thinking. She'd made her peace with Kieran months ago, and she'd listened to me talk about him ever since.
"How are you?" she asked.
"I'm okay."
"Heath."
"I'm scared for him. Not for me."
"That's the same thing, and you know it."
She was right. She was usually right. Loving someone whose risks compounded your own, Maggie understood that arithmetic better than anyone. She'd been running it on our family's behalf since she was twenty-one.
"He signed the extension," I said. "He deferred Scripps."
"I know. You told me."
"I'm telling you again."
"Because you still can't believe it."
I pressed my thumb against the steering wheel. "Yeah," I said.
"He chose you, Heath. People do that sometimes. It's not a clerical error."
I laughed.
"When he's done with the call," she said, "tell him the invitation still stands. Mom's already planning what to cook. Dad wants to show him the workshop."
"Dad's workshop is a folding table in the garage."
"Dad wants to show him the folding table in the garage. Let him have it."
I sat with that for a second. My dad, who still moved carefully around his own house and measured his days in what his back would permit, wanted to show Kieran Mathers a card table with a pegboard behind it. He wanted to offer what he had.
"Okay," I said.
"Heath."
"Yeah?"
"You sound different."
"Different how?"
A pause. I heard her chair shift. "Like you're not bracing."
I didn't have an answer for that. She didn't need one.
"Call me later," she said. "Love you."
"Love you too."
Three hours passed before Kieran showed up at my apartment. He came in smelling like outside. Wind and the faint mineral edge of Lake Michigan.
His eyes looked different, less defensive. Like a window with the blinds finally pulled up.
He set his keys on the counter, in the stripe of light. Stood there for a moment with his hands at his sides. I saw the lake water drying in a faint tide mark along his hairline. He'd been standing close to the glass at the reef exhibit, the way he did when he was thinking hard enough to forget where his body was.
