Free The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo Page B

what color his eyes were.
    Maternal Blunder Number 429. She set the count back to zero at the start of each year.
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    —
    “W e failed them,” Marilyn said. Violet had left and they were sitting together on the back stairs, splitting a bottle of wine and watching the sunset as Loomis was being taunted by a squirrel in one of the oak trees.
    “We didn’t—”
    “All the things we’ve worried about, and this never would have even— Lord .”

    He put his arm around her, though he wasn’t feeling particularly comforting at the moment. He had in his mind a nagging miniature memory of a conversation he’d had with Wendy at Violet’s wedding. Nearly a decade ago, his daughter had mentioned something nonsensical, but of course he’d disregarded it, dismissed it out of hand. Because Wendy was unpredictable. Because she’d been drunk at the time, and grieving, and had seemed determined all day to overshadow Violet’s joy. Because he’d never quite understood the ironclad bond between his two eldest girls—their Irish twins, the double helix—except that it was fueled by equal parts love and envy, and made them behave in unpredictable ways toward each other. He’d always assumed it was one of those mysteries of womanhood that he’d simply never be able to comprehend.
    “I just don’t understand it,” she said. “How she— I mean, God, why she…”
    It was nice, in a way, to have his wife’s company in this bubble of ignorance, a space where he was so frequently alone.
    “I guess the important thing is that he’s safe and healthy,” he said. “Despite—you know. And Violet—she’ll be okay, right? She’s always found her way.”
    “I think that might be part of the problem, though,” she said. “It’s not always such a good thing to be so resilient.”
    “Well, I don’t—”
    “God, we have a grandchild we’ve never met .”
    Loomis trotted over, as though to remind them that they also had a dog that they had met. Marilyn scratched his ears and David his hindquarters.
    “Doesn’t it feel like we should’ve known?” she said. “Like if we were doing what we were supposed to, we would’ve been aware of this somehow?”
    “We were doing what we were supposed to,” he said gently. “We were living our lives. Doing our jobs. Raising four children.”
    She was quiet for a long time. “Do you ever think that we didn’t focus on them enough?” Her body was tense beneath his arm. “Were we focusing too hard on each other?”
    “No,” he said, disagreeing with both statements.

    “What are we supposed to do with this?”
    “I’m not sure,” he said. “Just—keep on, I guess.”
    She smiled faintly. “You and your stubborn peasant stock.”
    “The girls have it too.”
    “Uh-huh.” She let her head rest on his shoulder. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

1976–1977
    “Are you sure this is okay?” he asked.
    Both of them half-naked under the ginkgo tree in her father’s backyard: the house on Fair Oaks, mid-December, the leaves mostly shed but a few dangling due to a late first frost, creating shadows on the lawn that made David jump every time he noticed the movement in his peripheral vision. Their current activity was a scandal by his standards, if not by hers, but her bar would always be slightly higher.
    “Would you relax,” she said—her voice startling him anew—and the hand she spread across his chest was cold only at the fingertips. She worked her way to his nipple, kneading. She was tucked against his side. He could feel the movement of her smile against his arm. “Look who’s worked himself into a state .”
    “Coyotes,” he said.
    “Yes, here we are”—her hand moved downward—“watching the death toll rise.”
    He still couldn’t get over the fact that she was now a fixed part of his life. That when they were apart, he could close his eyes and conjure the smell of the crook of her neck, citrus shampoo spiked with a salty humanness. That he