Chapter 6: The Tuesday Clip

"No," I said to my son. "I'm not seeing Coach."

My son stood in the kitchen with his bag at his feet and his father's jaw set on his face.

"Dad says you two keep running into each other," he said.

"Your uncle is your coach, and he's family," I said. "I run into him at the market."

"Everyone in this town goes to the market," I said.

"Dad says it looks bad," he said.

"Your father says a lot of things," I said. "I'm not going to ask you to pick between us, honey. Not now, not ever."

He looked at me for a long time.

He was fifteen, with a wrestler's neck, and he wanted to believe me.

I could see it.

"Okay," he said finally, and picked up his bag, and went upstairs.

That was June.

By the Fourth of July, the whole cul-de-sac on Meadow Run Court had hung out flags and set up folding tables across the street.

Sixty neighbors came with potato salad and lawn chairs, and kids ran under sprinklers in the heat.

Marty Hammond, our next-door neighbor, stood at his grill in a visor and a Neighborhood Watch polo, and he was in his element.

He had run the lawn contest for nine years.

He had also run the Neighborhood Watch group text since the day he moved in.

In the first life, he had used that text to tell the block I was out at all hours.

Twice he had called the sheriff because I stood on my own porch and counted stars.

He had started the same story again in May.

Over the grill stood a big flat screen on a rolling cart.

Marty was casting his doorbell camera to it, as he did at every party.

"Marty-cam highlights!" he called. "Here's the raccoon that got the Dunbars' cooler! Here's the UPS guy falling off the porch!"

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