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“You’re OK,” he said. “You’re OK.”

She sighed once, her breath settled into a steady rhythm, and then she stopped crying.

“We’re OK,” Dix said. “Shush, shush, shush.”

She sighed again, chewed on her knuckles, squirmed herself into a deeper spot within his arms, and fell asleep.

“We’re OK,” he said again. “It’s all going to be OK.”

He felt the delicate pressure of his daughter in his arms, the rise and fall of her birdcage ribs against his chest, the puffs of her moist breath against his collarbone. Something moved inside him, a warm ether. He felt suffused with the feelings of steadiness, protectiveness, and responsibility. His body seemed to hum with the sensation. He smiled, bent his head to his daughter’s, and breathed her in.

Dix had been out of the hospital for almost two months before he saw Sally again. They’d spoken on the phone a few times, but Sally was hard to reach and Dix was usually interrupted midsentence by Colden pulling something off a shelf or disappearing under a piece of furniture or simply screaming at the top of her lungs for what seemed to be the mere joy of it. Finally, one evening when Colden was asleep, Dix made a cup of tea and dialed Sally’s number.

“Come visit,” he said, without introduction, surprising himself. “Come meet her. Come see what you set in motion.”

The appointed day dawned with the soft, warm glow of gentle late-fall light. As he shaved that morning, he looked not just at the stubble he was shearing away but at his face itself. He looked at himself as someone else might. It was not a handsome man that stared back at him from the mirror, certainly not in any conventional sense. Certainly not like Darius. He saw a craggy face with deep-set eyes, prominent brows and cheekbones, a somewhat jutting chin. The last year had aged him. There were new creases around his eyes and mouth that came from worry, not weather. His home had changed, too. It was now an obstacle course of toys and baby gates. He wondered if Sally would find him absurd.

When she drove up, Dix stood in the doorway of the house. He wanted to see her from a safe distance. It had been a while. He felt unsure of himself. He needed to be reminded who she was. She got out of her car and stood there. Though she, too, seemed unwilling or unready to close the gap between them, Lucky felt no such inhibition. The dog squeezed between Dix’s legs and raced to Sally’s side. He watched the dog and woman greet each other with an exuberance he was afraid to display. Sally looked well. She was not a beautiful woman—a bit too square in her body and face, with eyes that played hide-and-seek in the depths behind her cheekbones and brow—but there was a raw frankness to her face that Dix found trustworthy. She was much more appealing and without the sense of danger that often emanated from a woman more accustomed to using her looks to gain attention.

Sally glanced up from the dog and smiled at Dix. She fluttered her fingers at him and started to cross the drive, Lucky dancing in between her feet.
She has a lovely mouth,
Dix thought. Her skin looked brighter, smoother. He wondered if she’d finally quit smoking for real. She looked trim. He wondered if she’d given up doughnuts and frozen dinners. She looked happy. He wondered if she was in love with someone.

He stayed where he was and let her come to him. Sally pressed by him in the doorway, still smiling, without a greeting, and went directly to Colden, where she was babbling on the kitchen floor. Sally squatted and produced a small toy puzzle of many bright plastic pieces that elicited an instant gurgle of approval from the baby. Lucky joined them, and the dog, woman, and child splayed out together. Dix gathered plates and glasses. Sally asked if he needed help. He shook his head.

He took the coffeepot and a bowl of salad out to the deck. Came back for dishes and cutlery, some applesauce and cubes of tofu for Colden, then took a quiche from the oven and a large bone from the pantry and brought them outdoors. The day had bloomed into clear sunshine, with a light breeze. Indian summer. Cold was coming. But not yet. Not today. He arranged everything on the table, put the bone on the deck for the dog.

“Hey.”

Sally had appeared in the back doorway, Colden on her hip, Lucky at her heel. Colden had her fingers in her mouth, her head on Sally’s shoulder. The breeze riffled the soft strands of her hair. Dix’s chest filled with warmth at the sight.

“Quite the spread,” Sally said, settling Colden and herself into their seats.

Dix served himself and Sally, fed Colden some applesauce, and dropped a handful of tofu cubes on her tray. He and Sally spoke quietly about the beautiful day, the dry summer, a woodpecker hammering at a tree, Colden’s enthusiasm for her tofu, how he’d made the quiche, how happy the baby seemed, how pretty and thoughtful she was. They allowed long, empty spaces to gather between their sentences. They watched Colden play with her food. They watched Lucky chew her bone.

“So, how’s fatherhood?” Sally finally asked.

Dix chewed on his lip, considering how to answer. “It’s, it’s . . .” He threw up his hands. “It’s amazing and wonderful and terrifying and exhausting. It’s a cliché, but I’m overwhelmed. By the love and also the work. And I feel bad sometimes that all Colden has is me, a rangy old bachelor.”

Sally tilted her head at Dix and slipped a crust of quiche to Lucky. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said. “You’re a far better father than most of us get. And we’ve both seen what so-called good upbringings can produce.”

Dix looked away, uncomfortable with the compliment—and the memories. “Any word on Darius?” he asked.

“Well, you gave him quite the concussion when you pounded him onto the porch. But, sadly,” she said, grinning, “he recovered from that. Guess they’ve sent him home to his parents. They’re supposed to keep him under control. Rehabilitate him. Pay off his debts. He got probation and a fuck-ton of community service. Blah, blah. Slap on his rich-boy wrist.”

“Just so long as he’s away,” Dix said. “Just so long as he’s back over the blue line.”

“Next thing we hear from him, he’ll probably be running for public office.”

“Undoubtedly on some right-wing platform,” Dix said, smiling. “What about you?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

“Found an apartment. Working. Thinking about law school. Studying for the LSATs.”

“Law school? All these shenanigans inspire you?” Dix asked.

“Sort of,” Sally answered. “But really, Warren kind of inspired me.”

Dix raised his eyebrows.

“We had a couple of great talks in the hospital. During visiting hours. Waiting for you to wake up, those first few days.”

“Thank you,” Dix said. Warren had told him how much time she’d spent there. By herself. Even after visiting hours. Drove the staff nuts. “Thank you for being there for me.”

Sally waved her hand dismissively. “Me and those machines. Listening to you snore.”

Dix laughed. “I don’t snore!”

Sally grinned at him. Dix imagined her watching him sleep, watching the lines blip on the monitors while he lay there, his body healing. It was an intimate vision. An intimacy he’d experienced without even knowing it. He wanted to thank her again, thank her more. He didn’t know where to begin. And, once begun, where he would stop.

He asked her about the farmhouse. “What will you do with it now?”

“Post a few ‘No Trespassing’ signs and just let it rot into the ground,” she said. “Too much bad juju out there. Let Mother Nature sort it out.”

They both watched Colden inexpertly work a puzzle, attempting to position different-shaped blocks into inappropriate places. Even Lucky had sidled over as if to offer assistance. Dix wanted to ask Sally so many things. But his thoughts were all jumbled together and in the wrong places, just like Colden’s toy. He conjured a distant memory of that odd collection of patched-together buildings, sinking into the mud. The place where his daughter was born and her mother died and was cremated. He imagined what the place might look like a few years from now, a decade from now, thirty years from now. A time-lapse video of the encroaching forest, tiptoeing deer, feral cats, a foraging bear breaking into the kitchen played in his mind.

“Hey,” he said. “You want to take a little drive? There’s something I want to show you.”

“Sure. Sounds intriguing.” Sally stood and began to collect the plates.

“Leave it,” Dix said. “Let’s just go. The ravens and chipmunks can have what’s left.”

Sally stepped away from the table, swooped down with a dramatic gesture of her arms, scooped Colden up, and swung her in the air.

She is so natural with her,
Dix thought. And then,
So much more natural than I am.

Sally loaded Colden in the car seat in Dix’s truck. Lucky jumped into the foot well, and she climbed in after. She watched the familiar scenery tick by outside the window, the fallen leaves opening up the scenery. She breathed in the crisp, dry air and realized she felt happy. It had been a long time since she felt that way.

A few miles out of town, Dix turned into a once-wide but now-overgrown gravel drive. They drove past several
N
O
T
RESPASSING
signs. Sally started to remark on this, to ask why they were heading onto posted land, but instead she kept her mouth shut and waited to see where Dix was taking her. It could be his land; he could have posted it for all she knew. They drove up a gently curving slope for a half mile, then suddenly, the dense trees gave way. Sally furrowed her brow in question at the view that opened up in front of her. In the midst of an overgrown acre of what had clearly once been lawn, there stood an imposing log home with a broad front porch. Her eyes flicked over a large garage, barn, shop. Dix stopped the truck near what was left of a half-dead tree with a ripped and jagged snag where a full crown of branches had once been.

They both stared out the windshield in silence. The home had a sad air of desertion, of something once grand and now long forgotten. A sapling pushed up through the front porch. Weeds sprouted from the gutters. Empty planters hung from wrought-iron hooks. Lucky stood up between Sally’s legs. Colden had fallen asleep. Sally listened to her light snores as she waited for Dix to explain.

“This,” he finally said, his voice a whispered breath. “This is Miranda’s house.”

Sally surveyed the spread in front of her and imagined it in its more well-cared-for days. “They really were fucking rich, weren’t they?”

“Rich in dollars. Poor in spirit,” Dix said.

“White-people problems,” Sally said. “First World problems.”

“Yeah, but problems nonetheless,” Dix said. “I guess I always thought of Miranda as having a kind of psychological limp. Healed crooked from whatever hurt her. Like my dog.”

They both quietly opened their doors and slipped from the truck. Sally took several steps into the yard, toward the house. A squirrel chattered at them from where it clung to a gutter. One of the boards covering a window had fallen free. It swayed back and forth in a fitful gust of wind, held in place by a single screw. A tattered velvet curtain hung outside a broken pane.

“Who owns this place now?” Sally asked.

“I do,” Dix said, his voice flat and quiet.

Sally blew air between her lips. “Miranda never knew you bought it, did she?”

Dix shook his head.

“Let her save money and save face.”

Dix shrugged.

“And now you’re giving it back to nature, aren’t you?’

Dix nodded. “Some things can’t be fixed,” he said. “Some things just need to be let go.”

Sally turned her head over her shoulder and looked at Dix where he stood near the open-doored truck. This was a good man. A very good man who had no idea how good he was. It took his eyes some moments to stop their wandering surveillance and come to rest on hers. She held his gaze for a long time. No joking now. No smart-ass or snark. She wanted him to know how dear he was to her. How much she admired and respected him. That she adored him. She made herself feel it, all of it all at once, because she wanted him to feel it, to know it so deep in his bones that the speaking of it became unnecessary. When she was sure he got it, that he had registered her feelings, understood and accepted them, she dropped her eyes.