Jenna was there, and Dana and the neighbors, and this year Daniel and Ana and Sofia had driven up from Tucson with a cooler of Rosa's carne asada marinade and strict instructions about how long to leave it on. Sofia had cannonballed into the pool within four minutes of arriving. Daniel stood by the dessert table talking with Melissa and Jenna, and he laughed at something, quietly at first and then too long, and everyone near him started laughing too.
Eric stood at the grill. He still liked it there, because from behind it he could see everything.
But this year he was not alone. Tyler stood beside him in a gray T-shirt, tongs in hand, turning the carne asada with the solemn concentration of someone who had been personally instructed by his grandmother and would answer to her for any mistakes. He was seventeen and a half, back from a summer that had darkened his skin and lengthened his hair and loosened something in his shoulders. He was applying to colleges in the fall, mostly for biology, and he had finally turned in Ms. Okafor's extra-credit paper, eleven months late, in May. She had given it an A and written a single line in green ink at the bottom of the last page, which Tyler had not shown anyone, though Eric had seen it, once, by accident, on the paper pinned to the corkboard over his son's desk: You found out where your pieces came from. Then you decided what to build with them.
On the college applications, in the box that asked for his legal name, Tyler had written Tyler James Dawson. Nobody had asked him to. Eric had noticed, and had said nothing, and had gone into the garage and stood for a while with his hands flat on the hood of the truck.
The sun slid behind the neighbor's palms. Someone plugged in the string lights, and they came on all at once in their long golden zigzags over the pool, doubled in the water, one set above and one below.
"Dad," Tyler said. "These are done, right?"
Eric leaned over and looked. "Give them another minute."