"I'm not going to throw anything. Ivy's asleep."
"Okay." He sat down in the recliner, but on the edge of it, elbows on his knees, the way he sat in hospital waiting rooms. "Okay. You remember my mom saying Walt Voss was sick. Lauren's dad. Back in September."
She did remember. Carol had mentioned it on the phone, with that particular tone she used for news about the Voss family, as if reporting on distant royalty. Walt Voss, who had run the Ace Hardware on Main Street in Arden Grove for forty years, who had coached Matt's Little League team, who had taught him to drive stick shift in the parking lot of the Methodist church. Pancreatic cancer. Stage four. Renée had felt sorry, in the abstract way you feel sorry about the parents of people you don't know.
"Lauren came back from Minneapolis to take care of him. She's been staying in the house on Elm. She's divorced, she doesn't have kids, she took a leave from her job. It's just her. Her brother's in Arizona and he's useless." Matt looked at the floor. "My mom ran into her at church. At Saint Paul's. And my mom gave her my number."
"Your mother gave your ex-fiancée your phone number."
"She said Lauren needed people. That she didn't have anybody in town anymore. That it would be a kindness." He shook his head. "You know how she is."
Renée did know how Carol was. She thought of the photograph on the side table, the sparkler, the straight blond hair. She said nothing.
"Lauren texted me in October. Just to say hi, and thanks for the flowers, because Mom had sent flowers and signed both our names. Yours too. And I wrote back, and we talked a little. Normal stuff. How's your dad. How's your work. And then in November she said she'd been cleaning out her dad's garage and she'd found a box of my stuff. Stuff from high school, from college. My old varsity jacket. Letters. A bunch of photos. She asked if I wanted it."
"The box with the old pictures," Renée said. "Visit one."
"Yeah." He swallowed. "You were on nights. It was a Tuesday. She said she could drop it off on her way back from the hospice, and I said sure, and she came by around eight-thirty. Ivy was still up. Lauren met her, said hi, Ivy showed her the drawing of the solar system she did for school. It was nothing. It was nice, honestly. Then I put Ivy to bed and Lauren and I went through the box. And we talked."
"How long?"