I set the phone aside, grabbed my laptop and sent an email to the New Hampshire furniture people. Then I set it aside and went up to do the dishes.

I’d barely started before Auden called, “You want help?”

I looked to him to see he was up and looking over the back of the couch.

My handsome boy, my good kid, no longer my baby.

“Finish your program. There isn’t much to do here. I’m good,” I called back.

He nodded and disappeared again.

I did the dishes. Auden finished his program, deleted it and gathered his books. He told me he had to go and I walked him to the door to the garage.

When we were there, I looked up into his light brown eyes. “Tell your sister I said ‘hey.’”

“Will do, Mom. Be back to catch more, yeah?” he asked.

“Anytime, sweets. This is your home too.”

He grinned at me then bent to give my cheek a kiss and he left.

I watched him drive out, saw the garage door going down then I moved into the house, right to my phone.

Auden’s gone, I texted Mickey.

I got no text back for some time before I got, Cill’s down but Ash’s still up. Hang tight.

I hung tight, more time elapsed and finally it came.

Come over now.

I didn’t waste a lot of time getting over there now.

I’d not made it to the curb on my side of the road before I saw Mickey’s front door open with Mickey shadowed in the frame.

I was about to step up on his front stoop when he noted, “You didn’t wear a jacket.”

“It’s right across the street.”

He didn’t reply. Just looked annoyed, reached to me and grabbed my hand. He pulled me in and closed the door then tugged me to the side where there was a coat closet. He let me go to yank the door open.

“Mickey,” I whispered.

“Deck,” he whispered back.

The reason I needed a coat.

He grabbed a huge canvas coat and handed it to me. I shrugged it on, and drowning in it, with Mickey wearing only one of those attractive sweatshirts with the high collar and zip at the throat, he found my hand under the long sleeve, tugged me through the house and out to the back deck.

He stopped us at the railing close to the grill. The night dark, the air chill, we were as far away from his sleeping kids as we could get, and I was very uneasy.

“What’s going on?” I asked, still whispering.

“Told you I talked with Rhiannon after Cill’s birthday went south,” he said.

He did.

Belatedly.

I didn’t mention the last. I just nodded.