Page 153 of Wreckage and Rain

"Yes, sir."

He kisses the top of my head. Stands up. Walks across the store to where Mama is showing Lucia how to pose for a selfie with her great-aunt Patricia, who's already been adopted into the family without anyone clearing it with her.

***

The family dinner is at our apartment.

I don't cook. Colt and I don't pretend to. We have ordered from the Italian place on Halsted that's been our standing Sunday order since we moved in. Three pans of lasagna. Two big tubs of salad. A loaf of garlic bread the size of a small ottoman. Tiramisu in a tinfoil container the size of a lasagna.

Everyone is here.

The lasagna gets passed. Wine gets poured. Sam pours for the table. Daddy makes a toast with the fewest words and the most meaning.

"To Summer. Who came home."

Glasses click.

We eat. We talk. Jake tells a story about a fisherman in McClellanville who tried to swap him a redfish for the carry-on Tupperware of pecan pie at the Charleston airport. Autumn tells Patricia about her own promotion at her firm. Patricia approves of Autumn, which is to say she's decided Autumn is acceptable and will continue to be observed. Lucia, mid-meal, leans toward Colt across the table and says, very seriously, Uncle Cowboy, your shirt has sauce on it, and Colt looks down and indeed his shirt has sauce on it, and the whole table laughs at the precise volume a three-year-old likes, and Lucia, satisfied with her observation, returns to her garlic bread.

I lean back in my chair. Colt is next to me. He has his hand on the back of my neck. He's been doing that since dinner started. The light pressure. The reminder.

"Roof," he says, into my ear, soft.

"After everyone's gone," I say.

He winks. "I'll smuggle up the good bottle."

We have cake. I cut it. I serve it. People eat it. We clear plates together. Mama tries to take over the kitchen and Colt blocks her at the sink. Mama swats him with a dish towel and goes back to the table.

The evening goes soft. Lucia gives out first. Mama carries her to our bed and lays her on her stomach, arms flung out, leaves the door cracked. Dom and Daddy stay at the kitchen table, still talking. Mama ends up on the couch with Patricia. Autumn and Sam are on the loveseat. Jake falls asleep in the chair by the fireplace before the rest of us are ready to admit the night is ending.

Family. The kind that doesn't match anyone's idea of family and has decided to be one anyway.

We let them stay until midnight. Mama and Daddy take Lucia to their Airbnb, with Marisol, Dom, and a small parade behind them. Patricia, Autumn, and Sam leave a little after. Jake wakes up long enough to walk himself to the guest room and is asleep again before he's on the bed.

The last door closes. The apartment is ours.

I grab a cardigan. The night's warm, the soft mid-June warm Chicago gets before real summer, and the puffer's in the closet, sleeping for the season. Colt has the throw blanket off the couch, the bottle of wine, and two glasses.

***

The roof hasn't changed. The folding chairs are still up there, though they've been there since January and look worse for it. The view east is the lake, dark, with downtown gold to the right. The summer sky is the color of plum.

He sets the wine on the parapet. Pours.

I take a glass. He clinks his against mine.

"To you."

"To us."

"To us."

We drink. The wine is good. The summer air on the roof is warm. The city hums below us. Somewhere west a siren winds up and fades. Somewhere south a baseball stadium is letting out. The cumulative noise of three million people doing their lives is the soundtrack I've learned to love.

He sits in one of the folding chairs. Pulls me into his lap. I'm taller than him from up here and I love that. He puts his hands at my waist.

"That book."