for the occasion, in a button-down shirt and khakis. As soon as they made eye contact, his dad came over. He looked slightly hunched, and Dylan recalled Dee saying that his back had been giving him trouble.
“Hello, there,” his dad greeted him. “How’s work?”
“Brutal,” Dylan said. “With all that’s going on with the markets, it’s making things hard.” His dad had always been his own height, about six feet even, but now it seemed like Dylan was looking down a little to talk to him. It unsettled Dylan, almost making him feel sorry for his father, when he preferred not to have any strong feelings about him at all.
“You should take a break sometime. Why don’t you come over and watch the game with me next week?”
They never watched the game together. In fact, Dylan never visited him at the townhouse he’d bought after he’d retired a few years ago. “Yeah, maybe. Monday nights are always bad, though.”
One of Dee’s children, Connor, ran up to them. “Grandpa, guess what?”
Dylan’s dad leaned down, giving the boy his full attention. “What?”
“Mom says I can get a pet lizard. If I get all A’s and B’s.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. You did it last time.”
Dylan raised his eyebrows at the reply. When he’d been a kid, his dad hadn’t even looked at his good grades before signing his report card—or if he had, he hadn’t commented on them.
His father now asked Connor, “What got you interested in lizards?”
The boy basked in the older man’s attention. “My friend Quentin has one. Do you want to play my new videogame with me?”
Dylan’s father looked sincerely regretful. “Oh, you know those aren’t my thing.”
So he’d at least tried before. As a grandpa, he was doing a good job. Better late than never.
Dylan went to the kitchen and set the cupcakes down on the counter. Dee leaned closer to him and said, “That’s Allison in the gray sweater.” She inclined her head ever so slightly in the direction of the women he’d just passed.
Dylan glanced over and saw the tall brunette looking right back at him. She smiled and then returned her attention to her friend. “Am I supposed to know who that is?” he asked his sister under his breath.
“I told you about her,” she whispered back. “Connor is friends with her son? She lives down the street? Come on. It’s been forever since you dated.”
Dylan opened his mouth again to explain that the timing wasn’t right for a new relationship of any kind when Dee straightened and said, “Hi, Allison!” Dylan turned around as the brunette walked over to them.
“Hi! Do you need any help?”
“Oh, no, I think Paul took care of everything. I don’t think you’ve met my brother. This is Dylan. Dylan, this is my friend Allison.”
“Nice to meet you,” Dylan said.
“You too. Dee’s told me a lot about you. You’re in investment banking, isn’t that right?” When he nodded, she added with a smile, “So you must be pretty smart.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he answered easily. “What do you do?” He listened as Allison talked about pharmaceuticals, asking at an appropriate moment, “How long have you been working there?”
How long had Paige been a teacher? Her students probably adored her.
She hadn’t worn a wedding ring, but for all he knew, she had a boyfriend. Maybe a fellow teacher, someone with whom she could happily discuss crayons or phonics or whatever teachers talked about for hours on end. Or maybe he was a guy with a beard who brewed his own craft beer and played in a band. Thinking about the possibilities set Dylan’s teeth on edge.
“Dee told me you run marathons,” Allison said, shifting the conversation back to him. She had good social skills. He had to give her that.
“Yeah, I’ve run a few of them.”
He’d almost always been a runner. In middle school, he’d joined the cross country team, and at every meet, he’d gone as hard as he could.
He’d never won, though he’d usually come close. He hadn’t been born with natural athletic gifts. In place of them, he’d developed a high threshold of exhaustion and pain. At a sports banquet, he’d gotten an award for athletic and academic performance combined. Grueling effort resulted in approval. He’d learned that equation before he’d gotten to high school.
“Everyone come sing happy birthday,” Paul called out. The interruption relieved Dylan. Paul stuck birthday candles into four of the cupcakes. “One for each decade,” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dee joked. “I’m turning twenty-nine.” Someone flipped off the lights and the candles cast a golden glow on her face.
She looked good for forty. More important, she looked happy. She seemed to like her part-time receptionist job, and she truly loved being married to Paul and being the mom to a couple of energetic sons. Despite her joking, she didn’t seem to mind the milestone birthday. So why did it give Dylan a vague sense of panic, as though time were suddenly moving all too quickly?
They all sang “Happy Birthday” and then Connor called out with gusto, “Make a wish and make it good!” Everyone laughed, but it startled Dylan. Their grandfather had always said that.
Dee scrunched up her face. “Hmm, let’s see,” she said, making a show of deciding what to wish for. Then she blew out all four of the candles, and people cheered.
A few hours later, the last guests left, including Dylan’s dad, who hugged the boys goodbye. Paul was already loading the dishwasher, and Dylan gathered up empty wine glasses.
“I’ve got something to show you,” Dee told Dylan, getting her phone out. “You will never believe this.” Some weird story about someone they went to school with, Dylan guessed.
She showed him a picture.
“Oh, wow,” he said. Grandma and Grandpa Cain’s cabin had a real estate sign in the front yard: Coming Soon.
“I drive by there every once in a while,” she said. “I already showed Dad. I think part of him wanted to buy it, but he says he’s getting too old to move again.”
“I want to see,” Connor said. “What is it?”
Dee showed him. “This was your great-grandma and grandpa’s house.” She beckoned to her younger son. “Come here, Noah, look. Your Grandma Cain’s mom and dad lived here.”
Connor’s eyes got bigger. “It looks like Abraham Lincoln’s house.”
Dylan laughed. “Yeah, exactly, it’s a log cabin.”
“We used to stay with your great-grandma
