– Hell with that.

He walks to the front hall, sits on the little bench Cindy found at a yard sale and stripped and sanded and stained so it would look nice in the house. He sets his cup down, pulls on one of his scuffed steel toes and laces it up.

Things could have been different. Doesn’t mean they would have been better. Not for him. Not for Cindy. Not for the boys.

He stands and stretches and tries to remember how much gas is in the truck and whether he has any cash in his wallet to fill it up.

– Hey.

He looks at Cindy, coming toward him in her bikini pants and bra, running a brush through her hair, Andy’s cesarean scar across her stomach, a good looking woman.

She taps the brush against his arm.

– I’m just saying, you could tell George you want him to come with you. It doesn’t have to be a contest to see who says something first.

– It’s not a contest.

– Well you sure act like it is. Both of you.

– Cin, the boy is getting older. I’d like to see him making some decisions on his own that don’t involve riding his bike to the bowling alley or copping a few extra bucks so he can get someone to buy him a six pack.

She reaches up and loops her arm around his neck.

– Just because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, that doesn’t mean it’ll grow the same way.

He pulls out from under her arm.

– What? Where the hell did that one come from? That a Hallmark card?

– You know what I mean. Even if he’s like you, you worked out just fine.

He looks at the wall, the series of pencil marks that rise up it, charting the growth of his sons.

– I got lucky.

He goes out the front door.