Ann showed up to babysit that weekend, nervous. She’d fantasized about that scene in the bedroom a hundred times since it had happened, and in her fantasies, Anthony grew more and more handsome, their conversations more and more intimate.

Maureen answered the door with a bright smile. Ann startled when she saw the pink dress on her. “You look nice.”

“Aren’t you sweet,” Maureen said. “I thought about returning this silly dress. I could tell you didn’t like it on me, but my husband insisted I keep it. Positively insisted, which is unusual. He just loves it. Speaking of…” She turned around and called out, “Tony? Come meet Ann.” She smiled. “I can’t believe you two haven’t even met yet.”

Ann did not correct her.

Maureen waited expectantly while Anthony and the boys wrestled on the floor. Maureen walked over to them and began to act more like a parent than Ann was used to seeing. Maureen told them to stop in her faux-stern voice: please, boys, please now, that’s enough. They didn’t listen to her and that was fine with Maureen, who didn’t seem to care. Anthony’s hair was tousled, and he appeared refreshingly lighthearted, laughing when Toby tried to put him in a headlock. “Who do you think you are, huh? André the Giant?” It was the first time Ann noticed an accent in his voice. It wasn’t like Maureen’s more refined Boston drawl; this was more working class and rough. Anthony stood up and twisted Toby around so that he was slung across his broad shoulders like a blanket. Toby weighed almost as much as Ann, but when Anthony picked him up, he could have been as light as a loaf of bread.

Toby laughed so hard he couldn’t speak.

“Anthony,” Maureen said. “Could you take a break? Ann is here.” As if he’d snapped out of a spell, Anthony slid Toby off his shoulders and onto the couch. He was flushed and breathless. The boys looked at Ann, clearly disappointed that their father would leave soon.

“No shoes on the davenport,” Maureen said, pointing disapprovingly at Toby’s sandaled feet. Ann had never heard anyone call a couch a “davenport” before.

“Fine.” Toby tagged Brooks, and the boys ran outside onto the deck.

Anthony wore a pair of pressed khakis and a light blue golf shirt, although, like his suit, the ensemble didn’t seem to fit him right. He seemed out of place in Maureen’s domesticated world, energetic where Maureen tried to impose order, dressed in an outfit he probably wouldn’t have picked for himself.