The first thing they noticed was that Kyle was nervous around her and he tried hard to please her. The cigarettes were gone. Usually, on Sundays, his eyes were red from a late Saturday night. But not after Becks entered his life.

After the first dinner, Kyle and Adam took her daughters outside to toss a ball around. Kelly looked out the kitchen window to see her son with the little girls clinging to him as he gave them a dual piggyback ride.

Abruptly, Kelly turned to Becks and said, “What are your intentions toward my son?”

Becks was loading the dishwasher. She smiled at Kelly like an equal, not like a girl trying to please someone who could become her mother-in-law. “I think he has great potential, don’t you?”

Kelly smiled. They understood one another.

What Becks wanted from Kyle was what he was so very good at. She’d expected him to sell himself. She knew her worth and wasn’t giving it away to some guy who, at thirty-three, still liked to party until dawn.

Kyle had straightened up, proved himself to Becks and eventually proposed. When she said yes, he was floating in happiness.

They bought a house in Mason, with the plan that Becks would open a local law office. She was tired of being away from her daughters so much.

Finally, they were ready to have a wedding.

Kyle told his parents, “I want everyone who didn’t believe in me to be there.”

“You mean the whole town?” Adam said, deadpan. “Or all of Kansas?”

Kelly gave her husband a look to cut it out. “Big or small?” she asked.

It was a redundant question. Kyle liked flashy.

“How big a wedding?” Kelly asked. “Are we talking dinner for twenty or fireworks and limitless buffet?”

Kyle’s eyes widened. He was as handsome and as charismatic as his late uncle Robbie. “Fireworks! Now, there’s an idea. I’ll call Becks. She does love a pageant.” He hurried out of the room.

Adam was smiling. “It’s good you didn’t suggest riding in on an elephant.”

Kelly groaned. “Don’t let him hear that or I’ll be calling the zoo and seeing what I can arrange.”

Adam smiled in silence. He knew that the idea of saying no to her children went against her nature.

So Kyle’s wedding was scheduled for a Saturday, three months away. And it was one of the things that had been used to coax Vera to give a date for her return. Miguel said his wife was dreading it. “She thinks it’s the end of her life.”

No one brought up the truth. They knew Vera was struggling to keep going. Both she and Miguel were worn out from many years of constant movement, going wherever there was unrest and trouble in the world.