Her dad stood beside the shed on the left side of the backyard, handing boxes to a man in work khakis, T-shirt, baseball cap and muddy boots—Walter. The nieces were bouncing around like the ground was a trampoline, talking to them both. Walter took each box from Gavin and set it on the picnic table, then ripped it open. He took out objects one by one—a saw; a fishing reel; a hammer; a rusted knife—and laid them on the table. It was obvious they were sorting what to keep and what to toss.

And they were laughing. Slowly their words floated toward Colleen.

“Dad,” Walter said, “what about the fishing competition in November? We could enter that one. It’s a father-son one, but we can get away with it, don’t you think?”

Gavin laughed and clapped his hand on Walter’s shoulder. “I think we’ve gotten away with it for quite some time.”

The girls yanked on Walter’s hand, begging him to spin them around until they were dizzy. He grasped each girl in turn under the arms and spun and spun in a big circle, her legs flying out, until she begged to be put down. Afterward, the girls grabbed each other’s hands and walked tipsy through the grass until they both fell down, rolling together like puppies.

The words they spoke started to overlap as Colleen understood that just because she’d ignored the growing family, just because she’d shut out any information about them at all, it hadn’t meant they weren’t close-knit and loving. To pretend otherwise had been consoling but foolish. Now reality played out on her childhood lawn, next to the dock where Walter had proposed.

Shane was right—Walter seemed to be a good dad. He leaned down when he spoke to his daughters. He was gentle. His laugh was deep and real. He had taken time off work to help Dad clean out the shed, and he wasn’t doing it in a grudging manner.