I drive Jake’s golf cart back to the big house on the hill and park it in the driveway. I hear heavy rock-and-roll music blaring from the garage and I look in through the open door. Jake’s legs are sticking out from under his dad’s car. Loud knocks and bangs come from under the car.

“Jake,” I call out.

His shoes wiggle but he doesn’t come out. I cross to the radio and turn it down a little. Jake’s shoes stop dancing. He rolls himself out from under the car, but he doesn’t sit up. “Why did you do that?” He glares at me.

I walk over to him. “We need to talk.”

“Great,” he mumbles as he rolls back under the car. “Now she wants to talk.” The banging resumes.

“Jake,” I say again.

He stops banging. “What?”

“Come out.”

The banging resumes. What the heck is he knocking on down there? I tap his knee.

“Jake!”

He starts to sing. Loudly. And poorly. I bite back a chuckle, because I doubt laughing at him would be a good idea right now.

I grab Jake’s ankles, lift them, and back up until he slides out from under the car. “That’s cheating,” he says. He wipes a hand across his forehead, smearing grease from one side to the other. He doesn’t sit up. He just lies there looking up at me.

I point to my forehead. “You got a little dirt right here.”

“You want to do that mom thing you do and lick your finger, then rub it off?”

Actually I did. “No,” I grouse, “of course not.”

“Are moms just born with an excess of spit?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Must be.”

“I’ve seen you do that with Alex and Trixie. And you tried it one night with Gabby but she sidestepped you.”

“She’s too old for me to clean her with spit.” Or so she says. I happen to disagree.

“My mom used to do that too.” He finally sits up, rolling until he can stand up.

That takes me aback a little. “You never talk about your mom.”

“She died when I was twelve.” He shrugs. “There isn’t much to talk about.”

“Cancer, right?”

He winces and nods. “Yep.”

“What was she like?”

He walks by me and puts his tools in the toolbox. “I have the memories of a twelve-year-old. They’re probably a little skewed.”

“What else do you remember?”

He smiles softly. “She always smelled like vanilla. Except for right after she’d sneak out onto the back porch to smoke a cigarette. Then she smelled like cookies and smoke. She tried to hide it from me and Pop, but I think he always knew, just like I did.”

“What kind of cancer did she have?”

Jakes eyes fall to my boobs. “Breast cancer.”

I cover my cleavage with my palm. “Are you seriously staring at my boobs while you talk about you mom’s cancer? Really?” A grin tugs at my lips.

He shrugs. “Those are some impressive boobs, Katie.”

Jake goes to the corner of the room, opens a cabinet, and takes out a few fishing poles. Then he gets a tackle box from the shelf.

“My mom was tough as nails. Kind of like you.” He looks directly into my eyes.

“I’m not feeling very tough lately, Jake.”

“She broke a ping pong paddle over my ass the time she caught me smoking with Fred out behind the storage shed.”

“As she should have,” I quip.

“And she broke several wooden spoons over my butt when I got too mouthy.”

“Sounds like you deserved it.”

“She was tough. And soft, all at the same time.”

“Most moms are.” Or so I’ve heard. I really didn’t have one. Not one with a vagina. I did have two loving parents, though. The absolute best.

“It was nice of your parents to come here.”

I lay a hand on my belly. “They’ve been there for the births of all my children. Well, not actually in the delivery room, but still…”

“Laura and I weren’t going to have anyone in the room with us. We wanted to share it. Just us.” He snorts. “Guess that got all messed up, huh?”

I ignore his jab at his ex-wife. “That’s what Jeff and I did. Well, when he was home. He was deployed when Trixie was born.”

“Who was with you then?” He starts to sort through some tackle.

“Gabby was with me. She was nine and I couldn’t have beaten her out of the room with a big stick.”

He points down toward the area below his waist. “She watched the whole gruesome process?”

“Giving birth isn’t gruesome. It’s wonderful.”

He makes a rude sound in his throat. “I’ve seen it. It was pretty disgusting.”

“You just think that because you didn’t get to experience the moments afterward, when you hold that baby in your arms and promise to protect it and love it and care for it until the day you die. When you count all the fingers and toes while they wipe the blood off, or that second when you wait to hear that first cry. There’s always that moment when your heart stops, when you’re waiting for the validation of life, for the noise. Then it happens and the vise around your heart eases. If you’d experienced that part of it, you’d find it wonderful.”

His voice is quiet. “Yeah, I never got to do that.”

He throws something out of his tackle box and it clanks on the floor. It’s a knife. “Why did you take that out?” I ask him.

“Because you don’t like to kill the fish you catch.”

A grin tugs at the corners of my lips. “You remember that?”

He looks into my eyes. “I told you. I remember everything.”

“I do too.” Suddenly, I can’t swallow past the lump in my throat.

“Are Alex and Trixie with your parents?” he asks.

I nod.

“Let’s go fishing,” he says. He picks up a handful of fishing poles and grabs his tackle box.

“Okay.” I follow him to the golf cart. Suddenly he turns to face me. I take a step back.

“You’re wary of quick movements, and I want to know why.” He stares at me. “Do you think I’d hit you?”

“No.” I wring my hands together. “I know you wouldn’t hit me.”

“I don’t know what he did to you, but I want to kill whoever terrifies you so much.”

So do I.