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At the checkout, Simon unloads the groceries in the order he wants them bagged. Oliver places the party supplies behind them, and Jamie guards the flowers from both.

The cashier looks at the four of us while scanning the napkins.

“Garden party?” she asks.

“Yes,” Jamie says. He sets the flamingo umbrellas beside the paper straws. “We’re celebrating.”

The cashier lifts one package. “Anniversary?”

“Something like that,” I say.

The woman scans the umbrellas and notices the matching bracelets when Oliver reaches to steady the flowers.

“Oh.” Her eyes move from Oliver to Simon, then Jamie. “Are you all together?”

“We’re a family,” Oliver says.

The cashier’s eyebrows rise. She looks at me with more curiosity than concern. “Three husbands?”

“Three absolute dolls.”

She laughs.

Simon moves the tomatoes away from the canned goods before the bagger can put them together. Oliver takes the receipt from the machine because it’s closer to him, and Jamie rests his cheek against my shoulder.

The cashier watches all three of them. “You’ve got your hands full.”

“They’re well trained.”

She laughs again.

We leave with seven bags of groceries, floral napkins, dissolving straws, flamingo umbrellas, and a tray of tiny white flowers.

The community board hangs between the exit and the automatic doors.

Most of the notices are new. A yard sale sign covers the old guitar lessons, and somebody’s pinned a bright green flyer for the summer gardening club over half of Nathaniel Price’s face.

The word MISSING has faded to gray.

Juney’s phone number is nearly gone. The ink is strongest where the flyer’s been protected beneath the newer paper, but the last two digits have disappeared entirely.

Oliver stops. Simon’s cart rolls another foot before he notices. Jamie looks from the poster to Oliver.

I wait.

Oliver steps closer to the board. His old photograph is blue around the edges, and the crease across his face has split the paper through one lens of his glasses.

He straightens the green gardening flyer until it covers the word MISSING and most of Nathaniel’s name. Then he takes the receipt from beneath his arm and checks the total.

“The cream rang up incorrectly,” he says.

Simon turns his cart around. “How incorrectly?”

“Eighty-seven cents.”

“We’re not going back for eighty-seven cents,” Jamie says. He hugs the flowers closer.

“The error isn’t rendered acceptable by being small.”