While we’re waiting for the food, she says, “What are you gonna do about Riona?”

“What do you mean?”

She fixes me with a look like I’m being deliberately stupid.

“You’re obviously crazy for her. You’re gonna act like you’re just gonna let her go back to Chicago and never see her again?”

“You’re one to talk,” I say to Bo.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m talking about you and Duke.”

She flushes, scowling at me. “He’s my best friend.”

“He’s been in love with you since you guys were twelve years old. Maybe even before that. And you lose your fucking mind if another girl so much as looks at him.”

“No I don’t,” Bo snarls.

“You’re gonna lose him as a friend, one way or another. Either you let the relationship develop . . . or you’ll lose him to somebody else.”

Bo doesn’t like that at all. She flings back her sheet of black hair, her eyes blazing at me. “What do you know about it? You’re never here. You don’t know what our lives are like.”

“I’m here now,” I tell her. “So you better get used to it. I’m your big brother—that means I give you big brother advice. Whether you like it or not.”

Bo grinds her teeth, considering the many retorts she could give me. Finally she settles on this: “Well, let me give you a piece of little-sister advice. If you found a girl who can stand you, you shouldn’t let her go so easy. ‘Cause it might not ever happen again.”

With that, she snatches up her coffee and flounces away from me, leaving me to carry the rest of the food.

I bring it all into Shelby’s room, juggling the various Styrofoam cups and paper bags.

“Thank you!” Shelby says gratefully, ripping open the sandwich wrapper. As I suspected, Grady hovers around like a mournful St. Bernard until Shelby passes him half her BLT.

My mother lays the baby in the bassinet so she can drink her coffee. Her eyes are drawn back to the infant again and again.

“I wish Waya could have seen her,” she says. “He loved babies.”

Sometimes after a person dies, everyone else feels obligated to speak highly of them. To exaggerate their merits and forget all their flaws.

With my father, it’s the opposite.

You could never do justice to how good a man he really was.

He didn’t just love babies—he was incredibly kind to all children. He laughed and joked with us. Taught us with infinite patience how to tie a shoelace, or skip a rock, or milk a cow. Never shouted, even when we did things that were stupid and aggravating. He’d answer any question—if you asked him why clouds float, or where bears sleep, he’d give you an explanation you’d actually understand.

The only time he was stern was if he saw us acting cruel. That he never allowed.

I miss him. God, I miss him.

I wish he could have seen this baby. And I wish he could have met Riona. He would have admired her fire, and her determination.