Deedee and Michael didn’t respond.

“Let me try that again. Hello!”

Still no response.

“What’s going on?”

Michael didn’t say anything.

“Tell me.”

“I think something happened.”

“To what? To whom?” She began to look panicked. “Avery?”

“She’s fine,” Michael said. “Someone was at the Gordons’ house. Something’s up.”

“If you’d just stop by in the summer and talk to them like I’ve always told you, you might know what’s going on.”

“Nobody’s there now.”

Shelby walked up to him and poked the cell phone in his front pocket. “Jesus, Michael. Call them in Wisconsin. All these years I’ve been telling you to just call. Stop by when they’re here during the summer. Clear the air.”

“They don’t want to hear from me.”

Shelby stood behind Michael and gently rubbed his shoulders, even though her hands must have been tired. “Remember when Avery was born and you called, and Ed answered, and you just held the phone and didn’t say a word? I’m sure they aren’t holding a grudge. What happened with Ann is in the past.”

Deedee took a seat in front of her iPad. “I’ll Google them.”

“Don’t.” Michael felt funny having Deedee search for his old family. He’d thought about looking them up a thousand times, the way he might have tried to find an ex. But every time he’d start typing their names in that awkward way he used the dreaded computer, he’d get a sick feeling in his stomach and stop. He couldn’t do it. Now the sick feeling he had was different. Before, he worried what they might think of him. Now he was worried for them.

“Don’t tell me what you find out.” He stood up to work something out of his system and accidentally knocked a glass to the floor, and it shattered. “Goddamn it!”

Avery came running down the stairs and into the kitchen. She looked scared. Jesus, he knew what it was like to be a scared kid and swore he’d never put her in this situation. He felt that old anger and fear and frustration build up in him, and he heard Connie saying, Jump, Michael!

He looked at his daughter and jumped, and all the dishes in the cabinets rattled. Connie’s advice still worked better than anything he’d learned in therapy and meditation. He’d gotten so good at managing his anger that he could pull over to the side of the road and meditate for ten minutes when he felt it coming on, searching for silence and stillness. But this feeling he had building inside of him was bigger than that—bigger than anything he could jump or meditate away.

“You need to cool it,” Shelby said. She knew all she needed to know about Michael’s moods.