Abby Girl: Serious question time.

Jo-Jo: If this is about pineapple and pizza again…

Abby Girl: No. If Lincoln hadn’t died, do you think America would be a different place?

Jo-Jo: This U.S. studying has gone on long enough. We should go dancing, instead.

Abby Girl: Not this time, buddy. I have an essay to write. Compare and contrast Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant as presidents.

Jo-Jo: Grant was a president? The guy on the $50 bill?

Abby Girl: are you kidding me?

Jo-Jo: I always fall asleep in history. Mr. Worsham is boring as hell.

Abby Girl: Answer the question, jerk face.

Jo-Jo: Okay, boss. No, I think Lincoln would have been a disaster for us.

Abby Girl: Why?

Jo-Jo: He liked war.

Abby Girl: He didn’t have a choice.

Jo-Jo: That doesn’t change the fact.

“Are you sure you have the Tylenol?” I asked Joey for the third time. “And her sippy cup!”

“Yes, and yes,” he responded.

“There’s more sippy cups in the cupboard. And for lunch make sure she eats what I put on the list.”

“I know, soup and soft foods, on the divider plate.” He held up the can of peaches and the chicken noodle.

“Oh! Maybe Pedialyte. I don’t want her to get dehydrated. There’s some in the pantry, just in case. Mix it with apple juice, if she is sick again. Joey? Are you alright?”

He stood in my living room, noticing the picture above the fireplace. He frowned, his lip trembling slightly. “Evan,” he said finally.

“Daddy,” Zoey said, pointing from her vantage in the kitchen.

Joey looked at me.

“It’s alright,” I said softly. I had done my share of crying—it wouldn’t bring him back, I knew that.

“You look happy.”

“We were.” I sighed. “At least, for the most part. Are you sure you’re alright today?”

He turned toward me, a sad smile on his face. “Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Just go to class!” Joey said, pushing me out the door.

Zoey was still fastened in her high chair, enjoying cereal and munching happily. I blew her a kiss. “Be good for Uncle Joey, ‘kay, sweetie pie?”

“Bye, Mommy!” She went back to throwing her cereal on the kitchen floor.

I hurried out the door, hoisting my book bag as I slid into the car and headed to campus.

9am: She okay?

Joey: She’s fine.

Meetings plagued me for the first three hours of the day.

11am: How’s everything there?

Joey: Gave her Tylenol, she drank some Pedialyte. We watched three hours of some bubble show before she passed out. You owe me, Abster.

Then some routine attendance to catch up, lunch at my desk, with my phone nearby.

12pm: How’s Zoey?

Joey: We just finished lunch. Going down for a nap now. She looks better.

Finally, my afternoon class. My teaching Zen reappeared, and I calmly worked them through the first day assignments.

3pm: OMW

Joey: YOU DIDN’T TELL ME THEY POOP THIS MUCH.

I sat in my car before leaving class. I stared at his text and started to laugh. I could just imagine the look on his face, changing my daughter. What is this? What is that? Why is there so much? He would be disgusted, amused, and freaking out.

For the first time in a year, I stopped at the store, shopped for a few minutes blessedly childless, grabbed a coffee, and hurried home, a smile on my face the entire time.

Joey greeted me in the driveway. “Where were you?”

“It occurred to me that when we watched our sisters they were fully potty trained,” I said, laughing, as I reached for the groceries in the back seat.

“You didn’t warn me, at all.” He glared at me from the porch, his arms crossed.

I shook my head. “I guess you never understand until you’re a parent.”

He opened the door and I followed him in. “I guess not. You owe me, Abby.”

I chuckled, ignoring him for the moment. Zoey was playing with a wooden puzzle in the living room but leapt to her feet and rushed into my arms when she saw me. I picked her up and swung her gently. “Do you feel better, honey?”

“Better!”

I touched the back of my hand to her forehead. It felt slightly warm, but not as hot and feverish as it had been last night, or even this morning.

“I told you she’d be fine,” Joey said. He shrugged into his hoodie and grabbed his back pack. “I just have one question, Ab.”

I turned and looked at him. “Yeah?”

“Zoey. Where did she get her name?”

“I…” I was unprepared to answer that. I bit my lip unexpectedly. “Evan liked it.”

“Hmm,” he answered, but I knew he was thinking it meant something else. He wasn’t far off. I braced for his next question, but it never came. Instead, he said, “Well, I’ll be off.”

“No,” Zoey said, her hand out to him.

He grasped it in his own, rubbing his finger over hers. “I have to go, Z, but if your mom lets me, I’ll be back.”

“You sure you won’t stay?” I said hesitantly. These were troubled waters, and I wasn’t sure if I was wading out too far. “I’d love to make you dinner sometime.”

He eyed me. “Is that a date?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I don’t date soldiers.”

He stepped forward. “Why is that, exactly?”

I glanced up at the family portrait.

He retreated, smart enough to see my reasoning. “For Zoey’s sake, stay for dinner. Please.”

Sighing, he dropped his pack by the door. “Alright, you’ve got me. I need to call my mother and…what?”

I couldn’t stop laughing. I just couldn’t. The picture of his soft-spoken mother and her eyes lighting up that her third son was at a girl’s house; well, it was too much. Instead, I said: “You live with your parents now?”

He shrugged and pulled out his phone. “Nowhere else to go.”

“Mike? Randy?”

“Mike?” he laughed, firing off a text. “No way. Mike’s an asshole. Randy’s in college.”

“That’s right,” I said, remembering. I put Zoey down and she ran back to her puzzle. “Kelly?”

“Kelly’s out to sea until December, I think?”

“Hmm, alright.”

He punched in a number, and his quiet, unassuming mother answered on the first ring. “Mom? Yeah, I won’t be home for dinner.” He paused. “Abby’s Mom…yes, I’ll be home tonight. Seriously, Mom? Okay, I love you, too. See you tomorrow. Tonight! I’ll be home later!”

“Awkward,” I said, making my way to the kitchen.

Joey beat me there. “No less awkward than the mess in your freezer,” he said, pulling open the left-hand door to the fridge.

I was busy pulling out a few pots from the cupboard. “I always had the good notion to fill it on pay days. A throwback to our poorer days during grad school, when Evan was in the military.”

“Good thinking,” he mumbled. He pulled out a slab of pork chops and held them up. “This work?”

“Sure, and there’s some asparagus in the fridge, I think.”

“Ugh, no. Gross.”

“Mashed potatoes?”

“Better.”

“Potatoes!” Zoey yelled from the living room.

Joey popped the chops in the microwave to defrost and pulled potatoes out of the fridge. He tossed them to me: one, two, three, four. I caught every single one. “There’s beer,” I offered.

“I saw that. Ya mind?”

“Go ahead.”

He took one and popped the cap off, and held the bottle up, examining it. “German, huh?”

“Evan liked it. I got a taste for it.” I shrugged. We were doing a lot of talking about Evan. I wasn’t sure I was okay with that. It still hurt to talk about him, but my mother had been right—it did get easier with time. Just not by much.

“Evan was a good guy, at least that I remember. A little angry at times, maybe.”

You have no idea, I wanted to say. “You guys were on the team together in high school, right?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded. “That I do remember.”

“You were our favorite cheerleader.” He took a potato from me and started slicing it for the pot.

I laughed at that, and struck a pose, my hand on my hip. “With this body? I was never a cheerleader, Joey!”

His eyes roamed me from top to bottom. I wasn’t uncomfortable—hadn’t he done it a million times in high school?—but something about the way he stared—that hungry look. Oh, no. I’d seen it plenty before. I’d made a mistake.

I cleared my throat. “I’d better get Zoey,” I said lamely, and handed him the last potato.

I fetched Zoey from the couch where she was busy playing with a couple of dolls, and deposited her in her high chair, where I preoccupied her with some snacks.

Thawed pork roasting and the potatoes boiling, we found ourselves at the table, chatting about friends from high schools. I updated him on Sarah, who actually was a cheerleader, and how four kids and six years later, she definitely did not look like one anymore. He told me about Cole, who joined the Marines shortly after he did.

“I remember Cole. He loved pizza day in the cafeteria. What ever happened to him?”

Joey finished his second beer. “He, uh, he died.”

“Oh.” I swirled my own barely-touched glass bottle. “Was he shot?”

Joey half smiled. “Good lord, no. He had a heart attack.”

“What?” I looked up at him sharply. Behind us. Zoey was hitting her tray, demanding more food. I got up and poured the last of her snacks out. “How did that happen? He was a year younger than us!”

“You said it, he liked pizza.” He stood to check the food. “Unfortunate.”

I felt like crying. I didn’t even know Cole. But the thought that he was gone, like Evan, deeply disturbed me. The way that Joey could just, well, not even act like it happened bothered me even more. “How can you carry on like that? Wasn’t he your friend?” I said softly.

He turned and looked at me. “When it happens every damn day, it’s just another Tuesday in Fallujah.”

I looked back at Zoey, blissfully engorged with her snacks, too young to understand our conversation. “War is hell, I guess,” I offered.

He shrugged. “I lived.”

I said nothing.

“These are about done. Want to whip them up?”

“Sure,” I said, my head spinning from how quickly we had changed topics.

I set about the potatoes, while Joey entertained Zoey for a bit, who gleefully giggled at the faces he made when he stole, and promptly ate, her vegetable flavored rice puffs. She clapped her hands and begged, “Again, again!” and his actions were more dramatic every time.

I stood at the counter, the bowl of potatoes pressed to my stomach, as I whisked them smooth. I couldn’t help but laugh to see Joey moving around my kitchen, dancing like a monkey.

“Elephant!” Zoey called.

Joey set about making his arm into a nose and calling the most awful noises.

“That sounds nothing like an elephant!” I laughed.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “How do you know, Mom?”

“Yeah, Mom!” Zoey echoed him.

I shook my head and spooned the potatoes into a bowl for Zoey, then two plates for us. The pork was perfectly browned, and I slid them onto the plates as well.

Joey took his and sat next to Zoey, who clapped when I spread her bowl on the tray. Full of snacks, she began to draw in the potatoes with her pointer finger.

“Wow, that looks like fun,” Joey commented. “Can I try?” He leaned forward, and she painted his cheek with buttery, starchy mess.

I nearly choked on my bite and tossed him a napkin. “Oh, Lord,” I said, laughing as I tried to swallow.

He chuckled. “She’s a hoot, this one.”

“Hoot, hoot. Owl!” Zoey yelled, laughing.

We finished the rest of our meal, with Zoey and Joey going back and forth with animal sounds. Joey collected our plates and got out two more beers. I turned mine down and, rethinking, he poured us water into crystal tumblers instead.

We chatted for a few minutes, until I noticed Zoey starting to nod off. “I’d better get her cleaned up and ready for bed,” I said, standing.

“I’d better go,” he started, then I saw his face as he changed his mind. He lightly grabbed my wrist. “Wait,” he said.

“What?” I said. “Do I have potato on my…”

He leaned in and kissed me.

Warm and savory, his soft lips pulsed into mine. A natural, long awaited kiss. Wow, he had gotten so much better than high school, when he was all teeth and tongue. I was in so much shock I didn’t pull away.

It was a quick kiss.

When he pulled away, I stood there, frozen.

“Abster? Say something.”

The use of my old nickname brought me spiraling back to life. Zoey was completely zonked out in her high chair behind him, and I focused on her. Nervously, I cleared my throat. “I think you’d better go,” I told him.

He eyed me, searching for something else. What, I didn’t know. “That’s it? You want me to go?”

“Yes!” I said harshly, controlling my voice as I hoisted Zoey from her seat. “You need to go.”

“Tell me that you…”

“Joey!” I was mad, now.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the first day I saw you walk into class.”

“I told you, I don’t date soldiers.”

He frowned. “I’m not a soldier. Not anymore.”

“You were,” I glared at him. “Now get out.”

Graciously, as I knew he would, he nodded to me, and grabbed his coat and pack at the door. “See you in class next week, professor.”

The door shut behind him, and I huffed for a few seconds before getting Zoey to bed. I touched my tongue to my lips. How could I tell him I’d liked it?