He found Teresa in the bathroom off their bedroom, combing her hair with her fingers. She grinned at him in the mirror. “That was really something,” she told him.

“Thank you.”

“That earned you points, I think.”

He started to pull his damp shirt over his head, then stopped. “Get me out of these clothes,” he said, “quick, before we get interrupted.” He raised his arms and she peeled the shirt off his torso and tossed it onto the floor next to the tub. She unbuckled his belt, unfastened his trousers, and let them drop down his legs.

“You’re a nurse,” he told her. “I’ve just been brought into the emergency room. There was a storm, a shipwreck, and they found me on the beach.”

“We have to get you warm,” she said.

He felt her lips on his chest, on his stomach.

“No, no, no, honey! Ask your mother!” Helen shouted from the patio.

Teresa paused.

“I’m freezing,” Roy said, trying to hold her in the moment.

“Really, now,” Helen called out. “Mattie, Katherine, listen to me. You should ask your mother about this first.”

“I’m dying,” Roy said. “I’m about to go into shock.”

Teresa stood up, shook her head no so subtly that it was almost a tremble, and left the room.

Walter was nowhere to be seen. Joseph, dripping wet, was running circles around Helen’s legs. At the nearest end of the Slip’N Slide, Matt and Katherine were holding Frankie—were swinging Frankie—low to the ground and counting in unison, “Three … two … one …”

“Stop it!” Teresa yelled, but their voices overlapped hers.

“Blast off!” They launched the baby. Teresa froze on the patio. She felt her heart squeeze in on itself like a fist. Frankie, who’d been stripped down to his diaper, had landed on his back, and as he sailed down the wet yellow strip, he somehow rose into a sitting position and began to rotate.

She watched him become a blur and realized it was because she was no longer frozen; she was running toward him. “Jesus, Jesus, please,” she said.

She reached the end of the slide just after he did. Two thin fountains of water were batting against either side of his head. He was laughing.

“We do not throw Frankie down the slide!” she hollered, picking him up.

“He’s not hurt,” Matt said.

“You don’t know that! He could have broken his neck!”

“Yeah, but”—Matt shrugged—“he didn’t.”

Frankie’s diaper squished against her arm. “Young man,” she said, walking back to the patio, “you can be restricted on your birthday. Don’t think that can’t happen.”

“Restrict him,” Katherine said, smiling.

“And you.” Teresa glared at her daughter. “Since when do you think it’s funny to put your little brother’s life in danger?”

“O-kay!” Helen nearly sang. “It’s all fine. And it won’t happen again, thank goodness for that.”