Page 185 of Full Contact

“How’s retirement?” Trier asked Rook.

“Good.”

“He’s filling my off days,” Varga said. “He thinks we should go somewhere on most days.”

“We stayed home last Sunday.”

“We did. He read in the yard. I watched a documentary. Separate activities, under one roof. Pickle explained it when he was here from Thunder Bay. Peanut butter and mayonnaise are both good, but they belong on different sandwiches.”

“I was there,” I said.

“Then you know it’s a bad metaphor. Nobody eats a mayonnaise sandwich.”

“You’re eating one now,” Rook said.

Varga looked down at his plate. “That’s turkey.”

“With mayonnaise.”

“Then it’s a turkey sandwich. That’s my point.”

Heath arrived carrying a covered dish, with Kieran behind him.

“Baked ziti. I helped. I grated the cheese and found the dish, which somebody had moved—“

Kieran kissed his cheek and took the dish. “You found it exactly where you put it.”

“Eventually.”

Pratt and Sully followed Callahan in. Callahan brought cookies, which Sully opened before he could finish explaining that they were from a grocery store.

Cross and his wife arrived last. She watched Trier take glasses down while I opened the wine.

“You two look settled,” she said.

Cross glanced at us. “They are.”

Trier’s hand rested briefly at the small of my back as he passed. I leaned into him long enough to make him stop.

“What?” he asked quietly.

“Nothing. Stay there a second.”

He did, his palm warm through my shirt, until Varga asked whether we intended to pour the wine.

A parcel from Kelsey had arrived that afternoon. She’d sent a photograph of it beforehand with a warning not to let Peaches open it early. I brought it over, and Trier cut through the tape.

Inside was a red-and-navy bandana with a St. Louis Steamers logo and a tag that said Happy 16th.

Trier held it between two fingers. “No,” he said.

“It has a breakaway clasp,” I said, testing it.

“That’s not my concern.”

Anna laughed. “Put it on her. Send Kelsey a picture.”

Peaches allowed Trier to fasten it loosely around her neck. I photographed her on the little chair, the Steamers logo prominent beneath her chin.