No it’s not, he reminded himself. It’s about being able to have toys to give away. Even Ray gets that.

Ray wasn’t a spiritual man but he was slowly coming around, and Kevin had done all he could by simply being there. Getting the Michael Jordan jersey was reciprocation in the only way Ray knew, through his connections and his cash.

Kevin thanked his friend again as Ray turned on the massive flat-screen television.

“She wants half of the house. Can you believe it?” Ray cursed louder than the announcers commenting through the megaspeakers surrounding them. “What’s she want me to do? Get a chain saw and cut the thing in half?”

“What about the girls?”

“We’ll both have custody. She knows how I feel about the girls. She’s not taking them away from me.”

The Sunday-night football game was on, yet Ray looked up at the ceiling.

“I worked my brains out to get this house, and a year after we move in, what does she do? I mean—you gotta just love it, huh?”

Kevin had learned that it was okay to just let his friend talk. He didn’t want to be one of those who tried to bolster Ray’s morale with platitudes. He didn’t want to beat down Ray’s wife either. He just listened and let Ray know he was listening.

“Sometimes, man, I just—I don’t know.” Ray finished his beer and shook his head. “I mean, life really doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“No it doesn’t.”

“You know—you don’t have to come around here all the time and listen to me whine.”

“I don’t mind as long as you give me beer,” Kevin joked.

“I had no idea. I mean none. And then one day when I got back from a day of golfing in my backyard, she hits me with this. I mean, I think it would’ve been better if there’d been another guy or if I abused her or something. Not knowing is what kills me. Not having any idea is what gets me.”

“Yeah.”

“This place depresses me because she picked out most everything. Except this room, of course. This was mine.”

The irony wasn’t lost on Kevin, not in this playroom downstairs, not in this house.

He knew that wealth and possessions and security were all sometimes just empty rooms that swallowed up echoes. They were filler and padding.

“I think back to that little place we had when we were just married. But I realized that we weren’t happy even back then. It’d be easy, you know, to think that we were living this tranquil life in that tiny apartment. But that’s not true. I was crazy busy and Stef was miserable. I always thought the moment we could get ahead, I could be less busy and she would by happy. But that woman was born miserable. At least around me.”

After a few minutes of watching the game, Ray stood up to get another beer.

“I’m good,” Kevin said, his bottle still half full.