“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. No sense speculating about what-ifs.”

After two years of living with his mother’s rapidly declining health, Paul had become an expert in speculating about what-ifs and worst-case scenarios. “I’ll go with her. Hope will come, too, if you and Jenny wouldn’t mind having Ethan for a couple of days. He can stay in my room.”

“Of course we will. He’s no trouble. Are you sure you’re up to going? I could do it.”

“You’ve got a lot going on with the wedding and the house. You need to be here right now.”

“I can take a couple of days away.”

“It’s fine. I’ll do it.”

“What else is bugging you?”

“Other than our mother’s increasingly depressing illness?”

“Yeah, other than that.”

“I keep thinking about Dad. You ever think about him?”

“Every day. Hard not to when Mom mistakes us for him all the time.”

“I just hope he knows we’ve done everything we could.”

“He knows, bro. People tell us all the time how proud he’d be of the way we’ve taken care of Mom and kept the business afloat, too. What else could we do that we haven’t done?”

“I don’t know.” Paul kicked at the dirt, frustration beating through him like an extra heartbeat. “I just feel like if he was here, it wouldn’t feel so chaotic and out of control. He’d know what to do.”

“No, he wouldn’t. He’d be so heartbroken to see her this way. He wouldn’t have the first clue how to cope with it. Maybe this is why he died first. You ever think of that?”

It had never crossed Paul’s mind that his supremely competent father would’ve been unable to cope. “No.”

“We’ve elevated him to god status in our minds,” Alex said. “But in fact, he was just a man who loved his wife, and this would’ve killed him. It would kill me to see Jenny this way someday. I hope to God that never happens, because it would wreck me.”

Alex had certainly given him something to think about other than the fact that his father would be disappointed in them.

“You know what you need?” Alex asked.

“I can hardly wait to hear this.”

“A few days away from it all. Take Mom to the mainland and then go somewhere while she’s in the hospital. Do something fun. Hell, take Hope with you. She could use a break, too.”

Paul was immediately hit with the unreasonable fear that Alex knew he’d kissed Hope. But how could he possibly know that? He’d been asleep when it happened. And it wasn’t like it was going to happen again, so what did it matter?