Natalie studied the list she’d found in her mother’s handwriting. “God, I wish I could talk to my mom. Do you talk to your mother, Peach? Because if you don’t, you should. And if you do, you should do more of it. When I think of all the conversations Mom and I could have had …” She shook herself. “Sorry—”

“Don’t be. This must be really damn hard.”

“It … yes. The building is only part of it. I need to figure out how to help my grandfather. If it was just his hip, I’d know how to help. But the other symptoms are so unpredictable. Every day, I wonder what he’ll forget, or if a memory will come back to him. What if he forgets who I am? Or worse—what if he forgets who he is?” She felt like babbling on, but stopped herself.

Peach was quiet for several seconds. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” he said. “If that works for you.”

“Yes. And … thank you for coming.”

He hoisted himself into the truck. “Yep. You take care now.”

The day ended as it had begun, with her standing at the curb in tears in a cloud of diesel exhaust from Peach Gallagher’s truck.

10

After the divorce, Peach had ended up with only his work truck for a vehicle, and Dorothy had insisted on being dropped off for school on the corner rather than in the carpool pull-through. Eventually, he’d persuaded her to explain why, and she’d shamefacedly confessed that certain kids made fun of her for arriving at school with a “workman.”

Yet another dart from Regina, whose biggest complaint in the marriage had been not having enough. They didn’t make enough money. The house wasn’t big enough. The car not new enough. The school not exclusive enough. The husband not ambitious enough.

Discovering her affair with Regis should not have surprised Peach. Should not have laid him flat. Regis was getting his MBA. Regis was going places. Regis was going to give Regina the life she deserved.

And stuck in the middle of her mother’s discontent and her father’s desperation was Dorothy, objectively the best kid in the world. Neither he nor Regina deserved her. The parenting plan had them dividing their time with surgical precision, down to the minute, so he dedicated himself to giving this incredible little person the best he had. That included parking the truck and walking inside with her.

Friends asked him why he didn’t find a cheaper place to live outside the city. Why he lived with his bandmates, Suzzy and her husband, Milt, in a neighborhood where rent was charged seemingly by the square inch, where he had to juggle two jobs and share housing just to make ends meet. The answer was simple. The answer was right here next to him, holding his hand.