Page 124 of Main Event

“He did.”

“It was everything I hoped it would be.”

“Yes,” I say. “It was.”

She turns to look at me. My wife—the word is new in my head, not strange, just new, like something that has arrived in the right size for the space it was always going to occupy.

“What do you want to do now?” she says.

I look at the room behind us. At my family and her family, and at the people who chose both of us and ended up in the same room because of it. At Shane managing the speakers with extreme seriousness. At Brandon making Kelly laugh, and purposely including Deja in their interactions without making it obvious. At Mack in the corner, holding court, my father beside him again, the two of them apparently not done with whatever conversation they started in the driveway months ago.

“This,” I say. “I want to do exactly this.”

She looks at me for a moment.

Then she takes my hand and pulls me back into the room.

EPILOGUE

ANDI

August again.

The center in August is its own thing—the afternoon program running at full capacity, the AC working harder than it should, the sound of fifteen kids in a building designed for twenty when the weather outside makes the inside the only reasonable option. I’ve been on my feet since nine. My back has been making its opinions known since noon. The baby has been making her opinions known for about three months, and today she has opinions about everything.

I’m at my desk reviewing grant applications when Mrs. Alvarez appears in the doorway.

She looks at me. She looks at my expression. She looks at the situation.

“Now?” she says.

“I think so,” I say.

She crosses the room, picks up my phone from the desk, and calls Luke’s number. He picks up on the first ring—he always does now, since August of last year. She tells him. I can hear his voice from across the desk, the low register of controlled urgency that is Luke deciding how fast to drive without saying he’s going to drive very fast.

“He’s leaving the gym,” she tells me.

“I know,” I say. “Tell him to drive carefully.”

She relays this. His response is not printable.

She guides me to the couch in the small waiting area off the main corridor. I sit and follow their instructions to breathe, then look through the window into the activity room. The afternoon program is in progress, typical of children who are deeply focused on what’s in front of them and unaware that anything is happening in the office corridor.

Deja notices.

She looks through the window, sees Mrs. Alvarez beside me, and reads the situation in about four seconds. She holds up one finger—one minute—to the kid she’s been helping with homework, then she comes into the corridor.

She stands in front of me.

“Is it time?” she says.

“It’s time,” I say.

She nods, and then, with the brisk efficiency she brings to everything she’s decided matters, she says, “I’ve got the afternoon program. Go.”

I look at her. Seventeen years old, with three college acceptance letters on the kitchen table at Luke’s parents’ house, the first place she called home, even before the adoption was finalized. Deja Woods. She’s been using the name consistently, making sure everyone knows it fits better than she expected and that she’s still getting used to it.

“Thank you,” I say.