Chapter 11: Lyle's Crew

Jeff looked at the phone for a long time.

Then he leaned down to it.

"No, Mom," he said. "It's on Dad."

He hung up.

His hand was shaking so hard he missed the button the first time.

He stood up, opened the dead refrigerator, and started throwing out six weeks of rotten food.

I helped him.

On Monday at 7:06 a.m., my phone buzzed.

Jeff had sent me a screenshot.

A new checking account in his own name, and a direct deposit form with his company's logo on it.

No caption.

On Wednesday morning I pulled into Little Acorns at seven-thirty and found a flatbed trailer parked across three spaces.

There was a pile of fresh lumber on the grass.

The old slide was lying on its side by the dumpster, still wrapped in duct tape.

Three men in Burgess jackets were digging postholes along the fence.

And Lyle was standing in the middle of the playground with a coffee in one hand and a level in the other, talking to the owner.

I got Evie out of her car seat.

She saw the lumber and the men and the holes, and her whole body went stiff with joy.

"Mommy. Actually. Construction."

I walked over.

"What is this?"

Lyle looked at me.

"A playground."

"I didn't ask you to build a playground."

"Nobody asked me." He nodded at the owner. "She's paying for the wood. At cost. The guys are on their own time."

The owner beamed at me over her WORLD'S OKAYEST BOSS mug.

"He came by Monday. Said he'd heard about a slide."

"I said it was duct-taped," I said. "Once. On a dock."

"I remember things," Lyle said.

The crew adored Evie inside of an hour.

The oldest one, with a gray mustache, gave her a pink hard hat from his truck.

The young one with earbuds let her hold the end of the measuring tape.

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