The band at the far end had stopped warming up.
A hundred and fifty people stood behind the rope line, wives, children, grandparents, and every one of them was watching.
My mother walked past him as if he were a piece of luggage.
She came straight to me.
She did not say a word.
She put her palm on my cheek, and it was warm and dry and smelled of salt and lavender soap.
Then she bent and kissed Scarlett’s forehead, and then Eloise’s.
“Hello, my loves,” she said.
Eloise grinned at her.
I felt my own eyes sting.
My mother straightened and turned, very slowly, toward her son-in-law.
“You were saying,” she said, “something about how men are.”
“Rosanne, Captain, this is a misunderstanding,” Dillon said.
He wet his lips, and I watched him begin to build the wall.
“We were saying goodbye, that’s all.”
“Ms…. she’s a guest.”
