Page 39

Josie hated crying with every fiber of her being.

Noah took a step closer to her, and she knew it was because he sensed her inner turmoil. He was good at that, and even better at providing subtle support in times like these, when they weren’t alone or they were working. No one but Josie would ever pick up on his small movement and the incremental distance it closed between them.

“Kids are lucky that way,” Noah said.

“I guess,” Carter replied.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Piper flew at him, worming her way between his legs and thrusting a red bubble wand at his face. “I can’t get this open.”

Carter’s face transformed, the agony in his eyes replaced with warmth as he set his beer on the step and took the wand from her. “What do you say?”

Piper pushed her goggles onto the top of her head and shifted as her little sister wiggled into the small space between their dad’s legs. “Please can you open it?”

Molly climbed onto Carter’s thigh and he wrapped one arm around her back to steady her as he twisted the bubble wand open. “You have to share with your sister.”

Piper stuck her hand out for the wand, smiling brightly. “Okay, Daddy.”

“I mean it,” he added.

“I promise!”

Molly stared up at Josie and Noah, her eyes wide and curious, and pointed. “Who’s that?”

Piper followed her sister’s finger, noticing them for the first time. “They’re the police, but don’t worry. They’re not the kind who arrest people, only the kind who talk to people.”

Just like that, some of the weight of Josie’s morose thoughts lifted. She glanced at Noah to see that he, too, was smiling.

One of the sliding glass doors opened. “Girls,” Erin called from the kitchen. “Time for a snack.”

There were a couple of minutes of negotiations, Piper and Molly not wanting to stop playing. With the promise that they could blow bubbles in the house, Erin prevailed and the two girls scampered inside.

“Your girls were very close to your mom,” Noah said, easing into the difficult conversation they were about to have.

Carter picked up his beer and took a slug. “Yeah. Very close. She always loved kids. Babies, especially. That’s why she wanted to be a doula. Did you know she was a doula?”

Louis Fisher had told them but Josie wasn’t about to drop that grenade. She shook her head.

“Back when she first started, you didn’t need any schooling or anything. You could just go out there and be a doula. She was a natural.”

The back door slid open and Erin stepped outside.

Carter continued, “I think she really missed it ’cause when Erin got pregnant with Piper, she wanted to move in with us to help out. Erin said no. She wanted to handle everything on her own.”

“We hadn’t been married very long,” Erin said. “I wasn’t sure how she’d be as a grandma. I didn’t like the way she treated Carter.”

He twisted around so he could see his wife. “Where are the girls?”

Erin walked over and sat down next to him, their hips touching. “On the couch with their tablets. They’ll be passed out in no time.” Turning back to Josie and Noah, she added, “Sylvia was mean to my husband a lot of the time. Always short and snappy with him. Constantly criticizing everything he did.”

“She wasn’t mean,” Carter said with a long-suffering sigh that told Josie this was an argument they’d had many times. “She was tough on us, yeah, but it was because she loved us. She had to be like that. We were unruly boys and we acted out a lot after Dad left.”

“She was mean, Carter.” Erin reached up and gently took his hat off. His hair was flat from having been covered. She ruffled it, massaging his scalp with her fingernails. “You were right, though. She was lovely with the girls. They transformed her.”

Carter leaned into his wife’s touch. “They didn’t transform her. She was always like that with kids. That’s why she was always in demand when she was a doula. She had a way, especially with babies.”

“That she did.” Erin laughed and tugged at the curls near the nape of his neck. “She was the only one who could get Molly to stop screaming as a newborn. It was miraculous.”

Carter set his beer back onto the step below him and hung his head. He snatched his hat from Erin’s lap so he could hide his face. His shoulders quaked in silent sobs.