“It is for everybody,” Leah interrupted. She patted his shoulder. Then her eyes focused on something in the distance, far behind his head. “I’m sorry to be distracted, but Ken has the kids at the movies, and I think I see them coming out of the Tivoli. They’ll be looking for me.”

Carlos turned and said, “Yep. That looks like them.” Ken Long was as tall as Leah, and he had the three children walking with him. Carlos said, “Well, it’s always good see you, Chief.” He and his wife walked on down the sidewalk toward their car.

“Bye, you two. Drive carefully.”

Leah watched her family’s approach. They had come to her as part of the post–July 19 world. She had first learned of Ken’s existence as a name on a list, the father and ex-husband of three victims. Now he was the husband she wished her parents could have lived to know.

Sometimes it felt to her as though she had learned everything she knew after she and Ken had adopted the kids, because she had known none of it before. Other times she thought maybe she was just trying to mimic what she had loved having her own parents do. The kids were the new world, and her job and Ken’s was to take care that they grew and learned, then launch them into a future she and Ken would probably only see at its beginning.

Raymond, the eldest, walked with his father, both of them talking seriously about something, which she guessed was probably the capabilities of several kinds of dinosaurs. He was starting to carry himself like Ken, even to sound like him. God, they grew up fast.

When Ken reached her, she kissed him and took the younger kids, Bill and Kristen, by their hands. “Let’s go, you guys,” she said. “I’ve got your clothes and swimming suits and jackets and stuff packed in the car, and the car is in the lot behind city hall.”

“Are we going straight to McClellan’s?” her son Raymond asked.

“Yes,” she said. “How were the dinosaurs?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “They have a couple of new ones in this.”

Leah knitted her brows. “New ones?”

“Yeah.”

Ken shrugged. “You know, genetic research.”

Leah smiled as they reached the car. She clicked the key fob to open the doors and then scooped Bill up into his car seat and put Kristen in hers, and locked the fasteners. Then she handed Ken the keys while she watched Raymond click his seat belt closed and then gave it a tug of her own to test it before she got into the passenger seat.