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"I know."

"Blaine." He turned around. He'd gotten dressed in yesterday's clothes, his hair was a catastrophe, and I have never in my life wanted to look at anybody more. "Whatever they say up there, I'd like you to know in advance that I'm going to be very pleased about it."

"You're going to be unbearable."

"Enormously.” Gregory said with a wink.

So we walked up the hill. And about halfway, without either of us saying anything about it, he took my hand.

I'd like the record to show that I nearly let go. That's the truth, and I'm putting it in. There's a bend in that path where you come out of the trees and the whole back of the house can see you. I felt it coming, and my hand actually started to open.

Then I thought about my mother in that dark kitchen, and I held on instead.

* * *

They were all in the kitchen, of course.

Lance saw us first, through the window. I watched him set down his coffee with enormous deliberation and say something over his shoulder to my parents. By the time we reached the door, all three of them had arranged themselves in a manner intended to look accidental.

My father was reading the same newspaper he'd read the day before.

"Morning," said Lance.

"Good morning," I said.

"Is it, though?" He looked at the clock, then at us, then at the clock again. "Because it's very nearly not."

"Lance." I folded my arms.

"I'm making an observation about the time," Lance said breezily. "That's all."

"You're not."

"You went down that hill before dawn," said Lance, "and it is now approaching lunch. I would like to state for the room that I have been extremely well behaved about it for hours."

"He's been sitting at that window since seven," said my mother.

"Rhoda, leave the boy alone," my father chuckled.

"He has!" My mother was giggling. "He's been sitting there like an indoor cat watching birds."

Gregory started laughing. Once he'd started I couldn't help it either, and then the whole thing was lost. My mother came around the island so fast she knocked a stool over, and got both arms around the pair of us at once.

"I'm not saying anything," she said into my hair.

"You're crying, Mother."

"I'm not saying one word," she sniffed.

Over her shoulder I could see my father, still holding his newspaper. It was upside down.

"Father."

"Mm."

"It's upside down."

"Is it?" My father turned it the right way up. His ears were the color of a stop sign.