I followed him outside.
The backyard was small and brown, a chain-link fence separating it from identical yards on either side. Owen positioned me in front of a makeshift goal made from two garden stakes and handed me another plastic stick.
"You're goalie," he said.
"Okay."
"I'm going to score a hundred goals."
"We'll see about that."
He grinned and lined up his shot with intense concentration. The ball came at me slow and wobbly, and I blocked it easily. Owen retrieved it without complaint and tried again. We played for twenty minutes. He narrated the whole time, giving himself play-by-play commentary, announcing his own goals even when I blocked them. He was fast and uncoordinated and utterly certain of his own brilliance.
"You're not very good," Owen informed me after I let one through on purpose.
"You're right. I'm not."
"Uncle Red's better."
"Uncle Red's better than most people."
He grinned at that, gap-toothed and proud.
The sliding door opened. Lily stepped onto the patio with a book tucked under her arm. She sat on the steps, her eyes on us.
After a few minutes, she said, "You're the quad guy."
I glanced at her. "Yeah."
Owen fired another shot. I missed it completely.
"Are you Uncle Red's boyfriend?" Lily asked.
The question hung in the air. Owen wasn't paying attention, already crashing through the bushes after his ball.
"We're friends," I said. "I'm just here to help."
Lily nodded, but her expression said she wasn't buying it. She went back to her book without pushing. Owen demanded my attention with another shot. And through the kitchen window, Red sat at the table with Derek and Sarah, his head thrown back laughing at something, his whole body loose in a way that was new to me.
He belonged here.
Derek and Red appeared at the sliding door. "Red and I are heading out to Sunrise."
I looked at Red, who still looked like he was bracing for a hit on the ice. "I'll be here when you get back."
They left. The front door closed behind them, and I was standing in a backyard I didn't belong in, holding a plastic hockey stick, while a seven-year-old demanded I keep playing.
So I kept playing.
Sarah called us in an hour later. She'd recovered from earlier and had transformed into a suburban general, commanding the kitchen with the efficiency of someone used to feeding a family on a deadline.
"Joel, you can set the table if you want. Plates are in the cabinet by the fridge. Owen, wash your hands. Lily, off your phone."
I set the table. It was a strange relief to have a task, something concrete to do with my hands. I counted plates, laid out silverware, folded napkins into neat triangles because that was how I'd been taught at sponsor dinners and I didn't know any other way.
Lily appeared at my elbow. "You fold them like that?"
"Is there another way?"
