“The beach!” Mariah squealed it. “We’re going to the beach! Can we get the same house like last time?”

“Well, no,” he began as Bradley leaped up to do wild celebratory dances. “Because we’re going to a different beach.”

“How come?” Bradley demanded. “That was a good beach.”

“Yeah, but so’s this. You get to go to a whole other state. North Carolina. I’ll show you on the map. My friend Spencer’s letting us use his beach house, right on the ocean. And it has a swimming pool.”

“A pool!” Bradley began to dance again, but Mariah reserved judgment.

“Is it a nice house like the other?”

“It’s a very nice house.”

“Will I still get to have my own room and not have to share with a stinky boy?”

“Yes.” Raylan decided to ignore Bradley’s mouth-farting spree. “It’s a big house, lots of rooms. So I invited Adrian to come with us, if you’re okay with it.”

The mouth farts stopped as Bradley eyed him.

“Two girls, two boys.” Mariah nodded. “She’s nice. She helped me with my cartwheel once.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“She came to see Teesha when I was at Phin’s and helped me do a cartwheel right. She can do bunches of them, and she smells good. I like her clothes. Phin said he saw you kiss her on the mouth. Is she your girlfriend?”

Well shit, Raylan thought. So much for easing into it. “She’s a girl, and my friend, and we like each other.” He looked at Bradley now. “You like her, don’t you?”

“She can walk on her hands. That’s cool. And she talks regular, not all: Ooooh, aren’t you getting big,” he said in a rather excellent falsetto singsong before he rolled his eyes. “She knows stuff like why the Joker is Batman’s nemesis.”

“Essential things.”

“I like her.”

“Then it’s okay if she and Sadie come with us to the beach?”

“Jasper loves Sadie. Sadie’s Jasper’s girlfriend for sure.” Mariah hopped up. “I need beach clothes, Daddy. I need new clothes for the beach. Can we go shopping?”

“Funny you should ask. Adrian said she needed new beach clothes if she went with us, and said maybe the two of you could go together.”

Mariah’s mouth dropped open; her eyes went to saucers. “I can shop with a girl? Just a girl?”

“If you want. We’re going to her house for dinner tomorrow so you could talk about it.”

“I want to go shopping with Adrian. I have to go up to my room right now and see what I need. I need sandals and flip-flops and three new bathing suits.”

“Slow down. Three?”

“You can’t wear the same one every day.” A female eye roll this time. “You have to wash out the salt from the ocean and the stuff from the pool, and you need three. I’m going up right now. I can make a list!”

On the wings of a proposed shopping spree, his fashionista ran from the room.

Bradley sat back down. “I need to talk to you. Private.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to make sex with Adrian?”

Inside his head, Raylan’s brain exploded. He had to run a hand over his hair to make sure the flames were metaphorical. “Wow. Did not see that coming.”

“You kissed her on the mouth.”

“I did. One doesn’t always follow the other.” But when Bradley just watched him, he figured he had to shoot straight. “Sex is complicated and private. And it should be. But under the circumstances … I have feelings for Adrian, and we’re both grown-ups. So … yes.”

“You kissed Mom on the mouth. A lot. And you made sex with her because you have to make sex to have babies.”

“I did, we did. We wanted you and Mo. Ah, you don’t always make sex to have babies, so you …”

Eight years old, Raylan thought. Closing in on nine, sure, but still. How much was too much?

“I loved your mom, so much.”

“But you don’t love her anymore?”

Now Raylan’s heart twisted. “Oh, Bradley, I do.”

Reassurance, Raylan realized. The kid wanted reassurance, not a biology lesson.

“I’ll always love her.” He pulled the boy out of the chair, onto his lap. “And all I have to do is look at you, at Mo, and see her. She’s in you, and I love seeing her in you.”

“Mo doesn’t remember as much, because she was just a baby practically. But I do. I still talk to her in my head sometimes.”

“Me, too.”

Bradley looked up. “You really do?”

“Yeah. I’m always going to miss her, but all I have to do is look at you and Mo, and she’s there. I love her. I love that we made you and Mariah together.”

His mother’s words came back to him, as if she’d said them for just this moment.

“Love makes room, Brad. There’s always more room for love.”

After a long, rainy day, the afternoon playdate, a movie marathon he approved for his own sanity, Raylan checked on his kids one last time.

They slept as they always did, Mariah cuddled with her stuffed animal of the week, Bradley sprawled out in a bed littered with action figures.

He went into his bedroom, sat on the side of the bed, and studied his wedding ring.

When she sat beside him, he just sighed out her name. “Lorilee.”

“I’d be sad if you didn’t keep a place for me in your heart.”

“You’re always there.”

“I know, and you know. Our kids know. I bet Adrian knows. I really like her. You know that, too.”

“I didn’t think this would happen. That I’d feel this way about anyone else. Ever.”

“But you do. I’m glad you do.”

He looked at her, so lovely, so real to him. “Are you?”

“Why would you think I’d want you to be alone? I couldn’t love you and want that. It’s time to take it off, honey. It’s time. It’s not forgetting me to take it off. You’re building a new life, for yourself, for the kids. This is a good house, Raylan, it’s a happy one. You knew it was time for that. You know it’s time for this.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Put it in the keepsake box in your drawer, the one where we put the locks of our kids’ hair, their sonogram pictures, all those sweet little memories. Keep it there.”

He nodded, got up to open the drawer, take out the box.

He started to take off the ring, turned back to her. “I’m not going to see you anymore, not after this, am I?”

“Not like this. But you said it yourself. You only have to look at the kids.”

“Lorilee. You changed my world.”

“We changed each other’s.”

“I remember the first time I saw you, when you walked into the fine arts class. You took my breath away. I remember the last time I saw you when … when you drove away. And so many moments between, Lorilee. But now I can remember so many of them and smile, or feel good, feel blessed, I had them with you.”

She tapped a hand to her heart. “Keep that place for me there. I don’t mind the company, honey. I’m glad for it.”