Free Wild Honey by Veronica Sattler Page B

reflected on the Barney phenomenon. Why did kids love it so? The answer came at once. Barney’s message was simple and clear: love. The eternally smiling dinosaur embodied the very bedrock of the only thing children really needed. Love, especially within a happy family.
    A tiny frown knitted Randi’s brow as she absently reached for the bikini Jill had talked her into. Matt was still singing. About a happy family. Are we a happy family? a voice in Randi’s head asked. Of course we are! her rational self countered. Matt and Jill and I, we’re exactly that.
    But Jill will be leaving to make a home of her own in a few months, the voice whispered. A family of her own. And then where will you be?
    “Right where I’ve always been—beside my son,” she found herself saying aloud. “We’ll still be a family, and a darned happy one!” To emphasize her certainty of this, she pulled off her T-shirt with gusto and flung it on the bed. “Who says what size families have to be?”
    She could still hear Matt singing about love. Right, she thought, as she peeled off her jeans. Matt loved her and she loved him—unconditionally. It was all they needed.
    But as she continued to get ready for the beach, the questions wouldn’t go away. All you need? the silent voice nagged. Is it really?
    T HE WEATHER was perfect for the beach. With temperatures in the eighties and a good breeze off the ocean, they couldn’t have asked for better.
    Randi slathered Matt’s back and shoulders with sunscreen. “There, that ought to do it, honey,” she said at last, recapping the bottle of lotion. “Wanna get wet?”
    Matt didn’t answer. She was about to repeat the question when she saw where his attention was focused. A pair of boys not much bigger than Matt were tossing a beach ball. With them was a man whose matching red hair and freckles plainly marked him as their father.
    Randi flicked a glance at Matt’s beach ball, a red-andyellow affair lying next to their blanket beside a plastic pail and shovel. She touched her son on the shoulder. “Want to toss your ball?” she asked.
    Tearing his gaze away from the redheads, Matt glanced at the ball. “Nah,” he said with a hint of diffidence. “It’s still sweaty out here.”
    “Well, what are we waiting for?” Randi grinned. “Race you to the water!”
    Matt’s answering grin was instantaneous. With a whoop, he took off running, the trio with the ball forgotten. Randi laughed as she followed suit. She’d make it a close race but let her four-year-old win.
    They shrieked happily as they splashed into the water, Matt a step ahead of her. “It’s cold!” Randi shouted with an exaggerated shiver.
    “Oh, Mom, girls always say that!”
    “Oh, yeah?” A handful of other bathers frolicked in the waves nearby, and she had to raise her voice above their excited shrieks and yells. “Says who?”
    “David ‘n’ me! You ‘n’ Aunt Jill both said it when we went swimmin’ in David’s pool, ‘member?”
    He chortled as she made a face at him. Randi was secretly pleased, however, that Matt remembered this so clearly; it had occurred when he was only three. He wasbright and observant, not to mention remarkably coordinated for his age, she thought as he dodged a wave and swam a few yards. The mother-and-child swim classes they’d attended at the local Y had paid off.
    They spent a good hour in the water before Matt opted for building a sand castle. Stopping to give him another. application of sunscreen first, Randi was surprised to hear him offer to coat her back with the lotion.
    “Sure,” she answered. She handed him the sunscreen and plopped down on her stomach. As he went diligently to work applying the lotion, however, she saw what had likely prompted this: the red-haired father was in the process of applying lotion to the back of a woman who shared a blanket with him and his boys. Aware his own mother had no husband to help with the task, Matt had assumed the role.
    Randi’s