Sebastian stretched out on the couch, and his feet came within six inches of Via’s leg. He stared at the ceiling as he talked. “To Cora, the world was very A plus B. She liked things to fall in an order. A line. She liked controlling whatever she could control. Especially for Matty and for me. I hated that part when she was alive and missed it so bad when she was gone.”

He brushed the back of his hand over his eyes and something came wildly loose inside of Via when she realized that he was crying.

“But she was also really fun,” he continued. “It was like she spent so much time inside the lines that like once every two months she just had to cut loose and lose her mind. She’d party hard, not drinking, but like, at a water park or bowling or wherever. A one-woman party.” He wiped his eyes again. “She loved peanuts.”

Via felt something inside of her fold over, once and then twice. She kept waiting for him to describe Cora physically. She’d obviously been so gorgeous. But he didn’t. He spoke about her as a person. A mother. A wife. And it touched Via. She felt tender, both with affection for Sebastian and, surprisingly, sadness that she hadn’t known this woman.

“She was such a good mom. Honestly, it kind of surprised me. Because she was such a harsh lady. She didn’t suffer any fools. She didn’t bother with whiners of any kind. But she was so sweet with Matty. Rigid. Lots of rules. But so sweet. They had such a good thing going. He was lucky to have her. Some people go their entire lives without getting loved that hard. And he had it for the first three and a half years of his life.”

“She died in a car accident?” Via asked, though she already knew it was the case. Just like her parents. She wondered for a second if Seb hated the phrase car accident as much as she did. Something about the word accident made it all seem so whoopsy daisy. Like they weren’t people alive and well with lives and kids one second and then dead on the blacktop the next second.

She felt so small there on the couch with a hand-knit afghan over her lap. Like a child snuggled in for a scary story. She wanted to be able to comfort this man who was sitting there, looking so tired. So dreadfully sick. So sad he couldn’t quite control the words coming out of his mouth.

“Yeah. Drunk driver. A college kid. He was all right, but his life was over, too. I met him once. Last year. He’s doing time for manslaughter. I visited him in prison and wished I hadn’t. He lost everything that day. Matty and I? We still have each other. But that kid’s life is just over.”

“Daddy, can I play one more?” Matty was turning around and pulling the giant headphones to one side. He looked like Princess Leia.