“It’s good news.”
“Can I still have a snack?”
“After.”
Millie’s quiet voice. “Is this about the wedding?”
“Sort of. It’s about the week of the wedding. You know how I’m going to be really busy photographing everything?”
“You said it was the biggest job of your life,” Jenna says. “You said it four times.”
“Thank you for counting.” Emma pauses. “So I need someone to be with you guys during the rehearsal and the wedding day because I’ll be shooting from morning until late. And your dad called.”
Silence. The particular kind of silence that happens when someone mentions Matt.
“Dad’s coming?” Aidan’s voice is different. Higher. The sound of a kid who just received unexpected good news and doesn’t trust it yet.
“He’s coming the week before the wedding. He’s going to take you guys for the whole week—beach, fishing, whatever you want to do. He’ll have you during the rehearsal dinner and the wedding day so I can focus on work.”
“For real?” Aidan again. “He’s actually coming?”
“He said he’s coming.”
“But is heactuallycoming? Because he said he was coming for my birthday and then he didn’t come.”
The dock goes quiet. I stop typing. Through the window, I can see Emma’s back on the bench, her arm going around Aidan, pulling him close.
“He said he’s coming, buddy. He bought the tickets.”
“He bought tickets for my birthday too.”
Emma doesn’t say anything for a second. When she speaks, her voice is careful. “I know. And I know that was hard. But he promised, and I’m going to hold him to it. Okay?”
“Okay.” But Aidan doesn’t sound convinced. Aidan sounds like a kid who has learned, earlier than any kid should, that some people don’t keep their promises.
Jenna’s voice, flat and sixteen and over it: “If he doesn’t show up, I can watch Aidan and Millie. I’ve done it before.”
“You’re not responsible for —”
“I know. But I can. I’m just saying.”
“Me too,” Millie says quietly. “I canhelp.”
“Nobody needs to plan for him not showing up. He’s coming.”
The confidence in Emma’s voice sounds like something she’s constructed—assembled from parts, bolted together, not quite solid. She’s selling it to the kids because they need to buy it, and she’s selling it to herself because the alternative is admitting that even now, even after the divorce, Matt still has the power to let them down.
I close the laptop. Sit there in the dock office with the water stain on the ceiling and Holly’s sticky note in the logbook and the sound of Emma putting her family back together ten feet away.
Aidan again: “Mom? If Dad comes, can he meet Mr. Paul?”
Another silence. Longer this time.
“We’ll see, buddy.”
“I think they’d like each other. Mr. Paul is grumpy and Dad is... Dad. It’d be funny.”
“It would be something,” Emma says. “Now go get your snack.”
