“I gotta hand it to Fin,” she said as they ate their dessert. “He did think of everything.”

“What’s in the backyard?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know. Trees and stuff. I haven’t been out there.”

“There’s a little building. It could be a fort.”

“Probably a garden shed. Did you look inside?”

“It’s locked.”

“Then I guess we’re not meant to go in there.”

Charlie looked disappointed. “I was going to make it my headquarters.”

“I see. Military, or have you set up a corporation?”

“What?”

They watched some TV after dinner, but not for long. Annie found herself ready to pack it in at half-past eight, which was Charlie’s normal bedtime.

“I’m done like dinner, pal,” she said, hitting the off button on the remote.

They both got ready for bed, Annie promising to come in and see him before he turned out his light. About a year earlier, Charlie had announced he was too old to have a bedtime story, but since his father’s death, he’d offered no protest when his mother offered to sit on the edge of his bed and read to him.

He was under the covers and had a selection in his hand when Annie came in. Rather than sit on the edge, she got right on the bed. “Scootch over,” she said, settling in, her back on the headboard. Charlie handed her the book, an old, weathered paperback, yellowed along the edges.

“What’s this?” Annie asked. It certainly wasn’t one of the books Finnegan had arranged to have put on the shelf in Charlie’s room.

“It’s one of Dad’s,” he said. “I grabbed it from home.” The book was The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury.

“Your dad loved Bradbury. He’d had this book since he was a kid. It’s a collection of short stories.”

Charlie nodded, suggesting he already knew. “Dad read me some.”

“He did?”

How did she not know this? A range of emotions washed over her. Sadness, guilt, regret. Had she been letting Charlie down, not exposing him to more of his father’s interests?

“Can you read me ‘The Destrian’?” he asked.

“The what?” She started thumbing through the book, looking for the story. “You mean ‘The Pedestrian’?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said.

She read aloud the classic story about a man who draws the attention of the authorities because he prefers to take an evening walk over staying home and watching television, which is what everyone else does. She asked Charlie why he liked it.

He had to think. “I don’t know. Because it’s weird?”

“I think it was one of your father’s favorites because it was about a man who didn’t want to follow the crowd.”

“What crowd?”