‘Don’t be a dick.’

‘I’ll talk to Juliet,’ he said. ‘She’s too young for all this now.’

‘Agreed.’

‘You should ring Ma, tell her you’re fine.’

‘You tell her.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Davey, she’s up the walls, just call her.’

He attempted to finish the conversation with Grace by telling her he loved her.

‘What do you think I should do?’ she asked all of a sudden as he was about to hang up the phone.

‘It’s your decision,’ he said.

‘Davey?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Fuck off,’ she said, and hung up. Nothing changes on Walton’s Mountain he thought to himself.

He rang his mother straight after.

‘I’m so relieved, son. I’m so relieved. Thank you. Thank you,’ she said. She sounded broken.

‘You all right, Ma?’ he said.

‘I’m like a shit on a swing-swong, love.’

‘What does that mean, Ma?’

‘I’m all over the place, love. She’s going to be torn apart, Davey,’ Molly said.

‘I wish there was something I could do.’

‘You’ve done it. At least I don’t have to worry about you.’

He broached the subject of gene testing with Juliet. They agreed Juliet was too young. It was a horrible conversation. It made him feel physically unwell. What if she has the gene? It was unthinkable.

‘You’re doing a good job, son,’ she said.

‘You don’t know that.’

‘The child’s still alive, isn’t she? Right now that’s good enough,’ she said, and she hung up. Davey often missed his family, but then he talked to them.

As hard as parenting was, they did have some good times, days when Davey and Juliet would just hang in a new city and shop for pretty things and visit local sights. They’d talk and have ice cream or doughnuts or cronuts or steaks or cheeseburgers or whatever the state delicacy was. They both drew the line at cheese grits and spam. It felt like old times, two buddies just hanging. Sometimes during those rare moments she’d open the door just a crack. When they were sitting side by side on a rock in Central Park, or fishing in Lake Tahoe. When they were hammering into beef enchiladas on a busy side street in Colorado or standing on the Grand Canyon skywalk, she’d let him in, if only for a minute or two, before the door closed and the shutters slammed down.

‘Do you think this is what heaven would be like if it existed, Davey?’ she said, looking down four thousand feet into the canyon. Davey had lost the power in his legs and felt a little seasick. ‘I hope not,’ he said, eyes closed and battling the urge not to lie face down on the glass bridge and whimper. Stay strong, Davey. She sat down beside him, leaning her forehead on the glass and looking down. ‘Everything looks so beautiful when it’s far away.’