“It says we should go see the dinosaurs. So eat up.”
Grant dropped his fork on his plate and threw his hands in the air in triumph. “YETH!”
“They may be extinct now, but you never know.”
Sometimes things come back to life.
TWENTY-FOUR
The rain started midafternoon in torrential sheets and caught Patrick and the kids off guard; three hundred and fifty days of sun a year—why bother to ever check the weather? Each drop landed with a deafening thwack against his flat roof, the symphony outside a perfect score to the mood within. Patrick glanced out the front window. The gravel in his yard was already disappearing under a thin lake, the ground underneath too dry, too hard to absorb such a downpour quickly. Earlier in the day, he ordered a cake to be delivered. Now he wondered if it would show up at all.
Grant twirled into the room, his own cyclone. “Do you think I should write a letter to the toof fairy?” He had to yell to be heard above the rain.
“No.”
“But I want to!” Grant climbed on his uncle’s leather chair to look out the window, too.
“What are you, pen pals? You don’t need to write her.”
“Why not?” Grant implored.
“Because you don’t have any loose teef.”
Grant placed his hands on his hips defiantly. “Yeah, but I’m gonna. I’m worried she might forget me.”
Patrick stifled a laugh. “She won’t.”
“She will!”
“Won’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
Patrick pried his eyes away from the front walk to focus squarely on Grant. “You’re unforgettable, that’s why.”
Grant beamed, then stuffed his fingers in his ears. “THE RAIN ITH LOUD!”
Patrick agreed that it was, then added, “Feet off my chair,” even though Grant couldn’t hear.
The cake finally arrived while Maisie was in her room with the door closed and Grant was in the backyard. Marlene erupted like Vesuvius at the knock at the door, her hot, angry barking blanketing the entire house with panic. Patrick picked her up in order to answer the door; she wriggled the entire time to get free. Where was the silent-film star he brought home from the kennel? Everyone, it seemed, was changing.
“Cake for Jack Curtis.”
“Whoa,” Patrick exclaimed. Behind the deliveryman arched an enormous rainbow in the sky.
“Neat, huh?”
Patrick tipped the guy a twenty and balanced the pink pastry box in one hand. He marveled at the rainbow as the delivery guy returned to his van. Sara, is that you? he thought, but felt instantly foolish. What was a rainbow after all, refracted light? Gay people, Christians always fighting over the symbolism when rainbows rightfully belonged to the leprechauns.
He kicked the door closed and set Marlene on the ground, careful to balance the cake. The truce he’d established with Maisie since brunch was fragile; a ruined surprise could reignite their war.
As promised, Patrick had taken them to the Cabazon dinosaurs roadside attraction. At the base of the life-size brontosaurus, Maisie nestled into her uncle. It might have been to shield herself from the wind that came whipping through the exhibit, kicking up sand from the parking lot; it might have been to commiserate over having to go to the dinosaurs for Grant yet again. Patrick had put his arm around her anyhow; he was willing to take what he could get and she didn’t openly rebel. They even dug for dinosaur eggs in the sandpit together, crouching low to avoid the wind.
“Can we do a video?” Grant asked. It was the one thing that never failed to bring them together.
“Sure. We’ll film one in slow motion. You both run from the T. rex and look back over your shoulder like it’s chasing you.” Patrick fished his camera out of his pocket. “And scream. Make sure you scream big.”
“I don’t feel like screaming,” Maisie protested.
“You’re being chased by a dinosaur. Screaming is the most important part!” And then, without really thinking, Patrick screamed a long, hoarse yawp to prove his point. A weekday morning, the crowds were thin, but his carrying-on still turned a few heads. He scanned the startled gawkers and then pointed up at the T. rex’s open mouth towering above them as explanation.
And then the kids screamed, too. And Patrick screamed again. And together they’d released these primal, mournful wails that were swallowed by the howling wind.
“What’s in the box?” Grant asked, appearing through the sliding glass door. It seemed aggravatingly nosy at first, intrusive, the way he would materialize at the sound of the doorbell, until Patrick remembered how, for years after Joe died, the way his heart would lift whenever someone opened a door; he knew intellectually Joe wouldn’t walk through, but in those fractions of seconds he remembered what hope felt like.
Patrick gently nudged Marlene out of the way with his foot to clear a path to the kitchen. “A surprise. Want to help me? I need to find matches.”
Grant vibrated enthusiastically. He was conspiratorial by nature, and if lighting something on fire was a part of this, he was one hundred percent on board.
Together they tapped on Maisie’s bedroom door. Patrick held the cake with three lit candles, their gentle flames dancing in the current from the air-conditioning vent. It had lavender icing and elaborate sugar flowers that crawled up the sides of the cake like vines. The design wasn’t to Patrick’s taste, but that was hardly the point. It wasn’t for him. Grant held his ear to the door and snickered.
“Go away.”
Patrick knocked again.
“I’m asleep.”
“Then how are you talking?” Grant implored. He apparently found this hysterical, but worked hard to stifle his giggles.
After a pause Maisie replied, “I’m reading.”
Patrick opened the door slowly, and when he saw Maisie’s eyes connect with the cake he pushed his way in. The room was darkening, drained of its color the way things can look in the last of a gloomy day’s light; the candles introduced a sunny, yellowish hue. Maisie was lying on the floor with a book and, betraying her
