One of the things being around children teaches you, I think, is that no matter what the tragedy, you must keep moving. You have no choice. Long before Jason’s death, before I’d even heard of him or his mother, I’d agreed to take Mae for a day and a half while Grace worked and Annabeth went to Maine to see an old friend from her year in college.

When Grace heard about Jason, she said, “I’ll find someone else. I’ll find a way to get the time off.”

“No,” I said. “Nothing changes. I want to take her.”

And I did. And it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I know society tells us it’s good to talk about tragedy, to discuss it with friends or qualified strangers, and maybe so. But I often think we talk way too much in this society, that we consider verbalization a panacea that it very often is not, and that we turn a blind eye to the sort of morbid self-absorption that becomes a predictable by-product of it.

I’m prone to brooding as it is, and I spend a lot of time by myself which makes it worse, and maybe some good would have come if I’d discussed Jason’s death and my own feelings of guilt about it with someone. But I didn’t.

Instead, I spent my time with Mae, and the simple act of keeping up with her and keeping her entertained and feeding her and putting her down for her nap and explaining the antics of the Marx Brothers to her as we watched Animal Crackers and Duck Soup and then reading Dr. Seuss to her as she settled into the daybed I’d set up in the bedroom—the simple act of caring for another, smaller human being was more therapeutic than a thousand counseling sessions, and I found myself wondering if past generations had been right when they accepted that as common knowledge.

Halfway through Fox in Sox her eyelids fluttered and I tucked the sheet up under her chin and put the book aside.

“You love Mommy?” she said.

“I love Mommy. Go to sleep.”

“Mommy loves you,” she mumbled.

“I know. Go to sleep.”

“You love me?”

I kissed her cheek, tucked the blanket under her chin. “I adore you, Mae.”

But she was asleep.

Grace called around eleven.

“How is my tiny terror?”

“Perfect and asleep.”

“I hate this. She spends whole weeks being a perfect bitch around me, and she spends a day with you and she’s Pollyanna.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m so much more fun to be around.”

She chuckled. “Really—she’s been good?”

“Fine.”

“You doing any better about Jason?”

“Long as I don’t think about it.”

“Point taken. You okay about the other night?”

“With us?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Something happen the other night?”

She sighed. “Such a dick.”

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Nice, ain’t it?” I said.

“Nicest thing in the world,” she said.

The next morning, while Mae still slept, I walked out onto my porch and saw Kevin Hurlihy standing out front, leaning against the gold Diamante he drove for Jack Rouse.