“For the baby,” Koa agrees solemnly, and Hank nods like he’s just solved world hunger.
We end up doing the kind of tourist day that feels vaguely humiliating until you realize everyone else in the world is doing it and you’re the weird one for acting like fun is suspicious.
A waterfront walk. A shop with shirts that say things like SALTY and SUN KISSED in fonts designed to be illegal. A place that sells keychains shaped like tiny alligators. Hank insists we take a photo by a massive decorative palm tree because he claims it has “vibes.”
Aleks looks like he’s being forced to participate in a hostage video.
“You could try smiling,” Hank tells him.
Aleks stares at him. “I am smiling.”
“That’s your smiling?” Hank asks, offended. “That’s your best?”
Aleks tilts his head. “My best is reserved for people who matter.”
Hank gasps loudly. “Deacon, did you hear that? He just told me I don’t matter.”
Deacon, unbothered, says, “You’ll recover.”
I keep my sunglasses on and let the sun bounce off my indifference. Externally, I am composed. I am above all of this.
Internally, I am pouting.
Not about the tourist nonsense. That’s harmless. It’s the fact that my brain keeps insisting on revisiting the same subject, like it’s trying to scratch at a scab.
Four days on the road. A day off. A game tomorrow.
And still, I find myself noticing things that remind me of a very small person I do not know very well, and the woman who came attached to her, like an unexpected clause in a contract I did not remember signing.
We stop at a little outdoor market. It’s the kind of place that sells local honey and handmade soap and painted shells that look like something a grandmother would proudly display on a windowsill.
Hank immediately zones in on a table of stuffed animals.
“Oh my God,” he says, eyes widening. “Lucy would lose her mind.”
Aleks drags his feet. “Isn’t she, like, asleep? It’s the middle of the day. Three-year-olds nap.”
Hank looks at him with profound disappointment. “You think joy has a schedule?”
Koa laughs softly, then checks his phone again. Deacon scans the stalls like he’s security, calm and present, letting the rest of us ricochet around him.
I drift toward a table of little trinkets. Seashell wind chimes. Bright, cheap bracelets. A rack of small toys that would absolutely not survive being stepped on by an adult and should be. Choking hazard.
I pick up a tiny shark plush, soft and ridiculous, with a stitched smile that looks absurdly sincere.
Lucy would love this, I think.
The thought arrives uninvited, and it annoys me.
I set it down. Pick it up again. Rotate it in my hand like I’m inspecting a piece of evidence. It’s pink, small enough for a child to carry, and harmless in the way that makes it difficult to justify refusing it.
Hank appears at my shoulder, holding two options: a pink dolphin and a green turtle.
“Help,” he says. “Which one is more Lucy-coded?”
I glance at them and get a bit irritated that he found not one, but two that were better suited than a shark. “Both.”
“That’s not helpful,” he complains.
