Mickey wanted to hug him then too. She couldn’t remember the last time she wanted to hug her brother, but suddenly her arms ached with it. She wanted to bulldoze his walls the way Ruth did. Walls Mickey watched him build, brick by brick, until she couldn’t see him at all. Walls that Ruth couldn’t see, or didn’t believe were real. Mickey had no idea that was an option, to simply not believe in them. She watched Lily put her hand on Silas’s, and watched Silas pull her fingers in between his.

Maybe Ruth really was exactly what they needed that summer. Not just Mickey, but all of them.

PEYOTE

THE CALL CAME IN before lunch. I’d spent the better half of the morning watching a father of four in Wales uncover his wife’s affair. He’d gone through her phone for photos of the kids, but instead he found photos of her boss, tonsil-deep. The husband had just drunkenly hurled his wedding ring off a bridge when KQ opened her office door with a bang.

“Pey!” she barked. “Get in here!”

The man stumbled as the water, white rapids like bared teeth, swallowed his faith.

“Boss, I’ve got a Four on the line right now—he’s just about to call; I know it.”

“Give it to someone else. This is more important.”

I gave my computer a longing glance before crossing into KQ’s office and closing the door. But when I scanned her screen, I forgot all about my lonely Welshman.

Domestic hostage situation in Illinois. A man with an AK had forced his way into his girlfriend’s apartment and was threatening to kill her, her two children, and himself. The police were already outside, the street blocked off with yellow tape. They were waiting for their negotiator, and from a distance they looked almost nonchalant, bored. Among them was the kids’ father, who had gotten a frantic call from his daughter when the boyfriend unloaded a clip into their front door, but he hadn’t been able to reach her since. Down the street lived the gunman’s mother. As of now she was oblivious. But not for long.

KQ laughed and slapped the table.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said to no one but me, “the bases are loaded.”

—

EVEN THOUGH I ARGUED against it—going so far as to suggest Trey instead—KQ demanded that Cal be our Grand Slam third. So a few seconds later the three of us landed at the neighborhood playground, a bona fide Scooby Gang. The sky was ablaze with sun and flickering red and blue lights, reflecting off the windows and the metal bits that held the slide together. KQ was in the grass, head thrown back.

“Fuck, I love this air!” she yelled through loud, sloppy breaths.