She said it for the first time.
Then she marched us straight to the cafe and ordered fries for six people!
“There are only three of us,” I’d said.
“Exactly!”
That became the rule. Swim, then fries, an embarrassingly large order, always.
We kept the rule after she was gone. Ben insisted, and honestly, so did I.
That became the rule.
***
Two years ago, Claire went on a weekend boating trip with a few colleagues from her office. A storm rolled in fast, faster than forecast, and the boat capsized somewhere past the point.
Two people were pulled out of the water alive. One body was recovered. Claire wasn’t in either group.
Search crews walked the shoreline for eight days. They found a cooler, a shoe, and part of the hull.
They never found her.
A storm rolled in fast.
I had to sit Ben down in our living room and tell him Mommy wasn’t coming home. He asked me if she was still in the water, and I didn’t have an answer good enough for a five-year-old, so I just held him.
