“You’re making salad. That gives you plausible deniability.”

The doorbell rang, and Glenna and I went to answer it.

Julie, her long auburn hair pinned up in a chignon, came in holding Danny, my six-month-old grandson. Danny wasn’t too happy even though he was outfitted in the red-and-white Washington Nationals romper I’d sent him. He was howling and yanking on the front of Julie’s gauzy camp shirt.

Julie, who appeared almost as frazzled as her son, said, “Danny’s hungry, he’s wet, he has that rash again, and I’m the worst mother in the world—I forgot to pack the Desitin. Can you look at him, Glenna?”

With her arm around Julie, Glenna led her into the living room, then knelt down, took Danny, put him on the couch, and undid his romper and diaper. Julie’s mother had died from pancreatic cancer during Julie’s pregnancy, and in those last terrible months of her illness, and since Danny had been born, Julie and Glenna had spoken on the phone nearly every day.

My grandson was quieter now, and Glenna said, “Danny’s fine. I picked up some Desitin and Pampers at the supermarket. They’re in your room. Let me help you.”

“That’d be great,” Julie said.

As they marched by me, with Glenna carrying Danny and cooing at him, I got a chance to kiss the carroty fuzz on my grandson’s head, and Julie pecked my cheek, saying, “Hi, Dad. How are you? I promise—in five minutes I’ll hardly be psychotic.”

They went upstairs, and I went out the front door. A heat haze shimmered over the creek, and Alex, in a seersucker suit and loosened tie, was trudging across the grass with two duffel bags hanging off his shoulders and carrying a Pack ’n Play in one hand and a bulging knapsack in the other. You can always tell a new father in transit with his family: he looks like the lone bellhop working a convention.

“Hey, Alex,” I called out, and he dropped the bags. I crossed through the shade of the oak trees and hugged him. Ever since he’d returned from Iraq, I tended to hug Alex longer than he liked, but he didn’t protest.

“Happy birthday,” I said, letting Alex go and taking the knapsack and Pack’n Play. “Work’s good?”

“Busy.”

“No traveling?”

“No, Dad. No traveling.”

DANNY WASN’T ready for ribs or corn bread—the birthday dinner I’d been preparing for Alex since he was seven—but after Alex blew out the candles on the pie, I liberated my grandson from his high chair, sat him on my knee, and introduced him to a spoonful. As his big hazel eyes filled with wonder, Danny cleaned off the spoon and let out a peal of delight, flinging his arms toward heaven as if praising God for creating butterscotch and ice cream. He tasted one more spoonful before his eyes began to close. I held him against me and, for a glorious instant, believed that I was holding Alex again—one benefit of reaching the age where nearly everything reminds you of something else.