Josh is in heaven as he chomps on one of Margie’s meatballs while the two of us share dinner at the kitchen table. “Mom,” he says. “These are the best meatballs I’ve ever had.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“You know how Margie made them?” Without waiting for an answer, he answers his own question: “She put in meat, but also eggs, bread crumbs, and also Parmesan cheese. She said Parmesan cheese was the secret ingredient.”

“Yes, they’re delicious.”

Josh takes another bite of the meatball on his fork and chews thoughtfully. “How do you make your meatballs, Mom?”

Well, I open up the package of frozen meatballs, stick a few on a plate, and put them in the microwave for sixty seconds. If they’re not done, I put them in for another thirty seconds. “Pretty much the same way, but without the cheese.”

“Next time you make them,” he says, “I’ll help you. Margie told me exactly what to do.”

It’s nice Margie is so good with him, but it makes me sad that when my mother was alive, she never seemed to bond with Josh. She never would have made meatballs with him. She didn’t even care that much when I cut her off.

The doorbell rings, and Josh leaps out of his seat with surprising energy for a kid who just ate about thirty meatballs. He loves answering the door though. It’s one of his favorite things in the world, if you can believe that. I’m not sure why though, because it’s almost always just some guy delivering a package.

I hear the front door unlocking, followed by the sound of soft conversation. That’s strange. Why is Josh talking to the delivery guy?

Unless it isn’t a delivery guy.

I struggle to my feet, which isn’t easy considering I have eaten about twenty-nine meatballs. (They were really good. Must have been the Parmesan cheese.) I shuffle over to the front door, and my mouth drops open when none other than Tim Reese is standing at the front door, talking to Josh. I freeze about ten feet away from the door, unable to move.

“Mom!” Josh calls out. “Look who’s here! It’s Mr. Reese—he’s our assistant principal!”

I look over at Tim, who has a strained smile on his lips. “That’s right. I, uh… I live just down the block, and my mom sent over these cookies from Florida, and I thought…”

He thought he would bring me some cookies. Except he got more than he bargained for.

“Cookies?” Josh asks hopefully. It will be a sad day when my son gets too old to be excited about cookies. Although to be honest, I still get a little excited about cookies. But at the moment, I’m having trouble dredging up any enthusiasm for them. “Can I have some, Mom?”

“Sure,” I say tonelessly.

Tim looks down at the white box in his hand, as if he had forgotten he was even holding it. He shoves the box into Josh’s arms without taking his eyes off me. “They’re all yours,” he says.

“Mom.” Josh tugs on my arm. “How many am I allowed to have?” “Um, one…”

“One? That’s it?”

“Okay, uh… two, I guess.” “But what if they’re small?”

Oh my God, I would let him have the whole box if he would just leave the room right now. “You can have three if they’re small.”

“Yay!”

Josh takes off down the hall with the box of cookies, leaving me and Tim staring at each other in the hallway. Tim shakes his head. “That’s your son? That’s Josh?”

“Yes…”

The confusion on his face almost makes me want to reach out and hug him. “You told me he was in kindergarten.”

“I never told you that.”

“But you…” He glances over my shoulder. “Can we talk outside for a minute?”

I’d really rather not, but I have a feeling I don’t have a choice in the matter. This is a conversation we need to have, as much as I’ve been dreading it. And I don’t want to talk about this within earshot of my son, and Tim knows it.

We step out onto my front porch, shutting the door behind me. I’m standing only a foot away from Tim, and I can almost make out the remnants of the freckles he used to have. I used to know his face so well, even better than my own.

We were inseparable when we were kids. And we thought it would always be like that—Tim especially. When we were six or seven, he used to talk about the future in a way that always included me. He’d say things like, When we get married, we should get a big house with five bedrooms. Sometimes I got the feeling he never stopped thinking that way—he just stopped saying it out loud.

“Brooke,” he says quietly, “how old is Josh?”

I shut my eyes for a moment, hoping maybe when I open them, this will all be a really awkward dream. Then I open my eyes again.

Nope. Not a dream. “He’s ten,” I say.

“Ten?” Tim’s hand is shaking as he runs it through his hair. “He’s ten years old?”

“Right.”

“So does that mean Shane is…?”

He doesn’t need to finish the question. We both know what he’s thinking. I may as well tell him the truth. He deserves that.

“Yes,” I say. “He is.”

“Oh God.” Tim looks like he’s going to be sick. “I had no idea that you…”

“Well, now you know why I left town.”

“Yeah, but…” He stares at the door to my house. “Does Josh know who his father is?”

“No. And I’d like to keep it that way.” “Does Shane know?”

I shake my head vigorously. “No. No way.”

Tim looks again at the door of my house, his eyes growing wilder by the second. “Christ, he even looks like Shane.”

“I know.” I bite my lip. “He does look like him, but he’s not anything like Shane. He’s a really good kid.”

“Oh God.”

His reaction is about what I expected it to be. Tim never liked Shane, even before all the terrible things he did. I should have known he would react this way. But it’s still hard to watch. Sometimes people do exactly what you think they’re going to do, and they still manage to disappoint you. “Look…” Tim takes a step back. “I think maybe I should go. This

was… a bad idea.”

He’s not thinking anymore about how when we’re married, we’re going to build a giant two-story dog house in the backyard. Which is fine. A dog house that big wasn’t practical, anyway.

Tim is about to take off when Josh bursts out of the house. He looks slightly breathless, and his lips are covered in cookie crumbs. “Mom!” he says. “The kitchen sink is broken.”

Oh, great. This evening is just getting better and better. “Are you sure?”

Josh nods solemnly. “Yeah. When I turn the water on, it only comes out slow or really fast and I got water all over me!”

I miss my old apartment in Queens. We had a landlord and a super, and if something was broken, all I had to do was call them. I suppose I have to figure out a way to fix the sink myself.

“Tim?” I better ask him before he makes a run for it. “You don’t know a plumber I can call, do you?”

Tim looks over at the house, frowning slightly. “If you want, I can take a look.”

“Do you know how to fix a sink?”

“Maybe. I’ve gotten pretty decent at fixing things around the house.”

I’m not about to turn him down. Plumbers are expensive, and while my parents left me this house, they didn’t leave me much money after taxes took its share. “Okay, thanks.”

Tim follows me into the house. It’s weird because he’s been in this house hundreds if not thousands of times, but not for a long time, and not since the two of us have grown up. I never swapped out most of the

furniture my parents had, but it’s not the same furniture from when we were kids. It looks different, but the same. Sort of like Tim himself.

“Do you have a toolkit?”

I think for a moment. “My dad kept one in the garage.” “I’ll get it!” Josh says.

Tim and I stand there awkwardly while Josh runs to the garage to grab my father’s toolbox. Fortunately, he doesn’t take long. He comes back a minute later, lugging a black toolbox that looks like it weighs more than he does.

“All right,” Tim says. “Let’s do this.” He looks down at Josh, who is watching him with big eyes. “I don’t know if I can handle this by myself. Do you think you could help me?”

“Yeah!”

He seems even more excited about fixing the sink than he was about cookies.

I spend the first five minutes watching Tim and Josh anxiously, but then I realize how boring it is to watch two people fix a sink, so I go to the living room to read. There’s a lot of loud banging and intermittent running water, and at one point, I swear I hear both of them laughing.

About an hour later, Tim comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his blue jeans. Josh follows a second later. “Mom, we fixed it! Mr. Reese fixed the sink!”

Tim’s face breaks into a smile. “Actually, Josh here did most of the work. I was just sort of watching.”

“And you helped me tighten that bolt.” “That’s true. I did do that.”

Josh beams at Tim. “Now you can fix the doorknob upstairs that keeps falling off. And I’ll help.”

Tim’s smile falters. “Uh, well…”

I stand up from the couch. “Josh, Mr. Reese is too busy to fix everything in our house. And it’s getting late.”

Josh’s face falls. He looks like someone told him his dog just died. “Oh.”

“But I can come by tomorrow,” Tim adds. “I mean, if it’s okay with your mom.”

“It’s okay with me.” My eyes meet Tim’s. “If it’s okay with you.” “It’s okay with me.”

Josh looks between the two of us, his face scrunched up. “So… are we fixing the doorknob?”

“Sure,” Tim says. “Tomorrow, okay?”

I send Josh off to get ready for bed while I walk Tim to the door. I honestly didn’t think I was going to see him again after the talk we had. But now it seems almost forgotten. Although I’m sure Tim hasn’t forgotten.

We pause as Tim steps outside. “Thanks for doing that,” I say.

“No problem.” He looks at me for a moment, contemplating what to say next. “You were right, Brooke.”

“I was? About what?” “He is a good kid.”

With those words, Tim turns around and starts on the path back to his own house.