“Sure,” Carol said. “At the grocery store.” A minute or two later she put on her blinker and screeched into the Stop & Shop parking lot. I was closest to the door so I jumped out. Christine jumped out right behind me, held out her hand for Johnny’s credit card.

The floral section was ablaze with red poinsettias.

“Look,” I said as I pointed to a small bouquet of yellow roses tucked in a corner of the floral case.

“Perfect,” Christine said. “Given the situation, yellow roses are a lot safer than red roses.

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re also a big step up from all those bouquets with the Santa picks and the pinecones covered in spray snow.”

I grabbed the roses. Christine yanked a yellow ribbon off a sympathy bouquet and tied it around the roses. We raced through a self-checkout kiosk, jogged back out to Carol’s minivan.

I gave the roses to Johnny. Christine handed him his credit card.

“So give us the action plan,” Carol said as we rolled across the parking lot.

“Action plan?” Johnny said. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Michael said. “Do we have to do everything for you?”

“Oh, please,” Carol said. “We had to fly to Savannah with you when you messed up your marriage. At least Johnny’s keeping it local.”

“Whatever you do,” I said, “don’t start a fight. And if Kim tries to start one, do not engage.” As I heard the words come out of my mouth, it hit me that I might possibly be a lot better at giving other people advice than I was at taking my own advice.

“Agreed,” Carol said. “Just hand Kim the flowers and tell her how great it is to see her and how beautiful she looks.”

“Right,” Christine said. “Even if she looks like shit. I mean, if she looks like shit, that might actually be a good sign.”

“Ask her how she’s doing,” Carol said. “And keep her talking. Don’t try to fix anything. Just listen to her. Do that mirroring thing—you know, where you repeat what she says back to her in your own words, so she knows you heard her.”

“I don’t get it,” Johnny said. “I thought the point was to try to fix this.” He sighed, slammed his head back against headrest. “What the hell do women want anyway?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“The million-dollar question,” Billy Jr. said.

“I think it’s probably up to a million and a half by now,” Michael said.

“It’s not that complicated, knuckleheads,” Carol said. “Women want to be heard.”

“Caring,” Christine said. “We want you to care enough to try to make our lives a little bit easier.”

“Blind loyalty,” I said. “We want you to be crazy about us, even though that may or may not make any rational sense whatsoever.”