me.”
“For approximately forty-eight hours.”
“Seventy-two.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“You threw a shoe at me.”
“You deserved it.”
“It was a very hard shoe.”
I laughed.
Then kissed him.
From the house, Michael shouted:
“Please stop! Some of us are related to you!”
I kissed Daniel longer just to annoy him.
Everyone cheered.
And somewhere between the laughter and the lake and the music drifting into the warm evening air, I suddenly remembered something Robert had once told me.
We had been young then.
Barely married.
Terrified about money.
Terrified about parenting.
Terrified about almost everything.
I had asked him how anyone was supposed to build a life without knowing how it would end.
Robert had taken my hand.
And said:
“You don’t build a life because you know the ending, Maggie.”
“You build it because you don’t.”
It had taken me nearly forty years to understand him.
