Laura's face went white. She had not forgotten. She had not exactly forgotten. She had put it in a drawer in her mind, the way she had put the rental confirmation in the drawer under the microwave, and she had closed the drawer. June twenty-sixth. Eli would turn fourteen on the sixth day of the trip.
"I was going to do something for him when we got back," she whispered. "A party. Just us."
Mark laughed. It was not a real laugh.
"He's been planning it," he said. "Did you know that? He told me on the phone last week. He wants to get up before sunrise on his birthday and walk to the inlet and look for oystercatchers. He asked if I'd come with him. He said, Dad, it's a lifer, it would be the best birthday present in the world. And I said, buddy, I'll be there. I promised him." Mark's voice cracked down the middle. "And you were gonna tell me he had a stomach bug."
"I was going to tell you the truth eventually."
"When? When he was fifteen?"
"Mark, please."
"No." He put both hands on the back of a kitchen chair and leaned on it, head down, like a man who has run a long way. When he looked up again his eyes were red. "No. You don't get to please me right now. I've been gone a lot. You're right. I know I've left you holding this. I know it's hard. I know your mom is—God, I know what your mom is. If you'd called me and said, Mark, I can't do this, I need help, I need you to come home, I would've come home. I'd have quit. You know I would've. But you didn't do that. You went behind my back, and you went behind his back, and you were going to look him in the eye and lie to him and then drive away." He shook his head slowly. "Who are you right now? Because I don't know."
Laura put her hand over her mouth.
Outside, across the street, a screen door banged. Through the kitchen window they both saw Eli come out onto Mrs. Pruitt's front porch, carrying an empty bird feeder in each hand, and stand on the top step talking to someone inside. He was laughing. He was waving the feeders around while he talked, the way he did when he was telling a story he liked. Then he turned, and saw his father's truck in the driveway, and froze.
For one second his face was perfectly still. Then it broke open into a look of such pure astonishment and joy that Laura had to grip the edge of the counter.
He dropped both feeders on Mrs. Pruitt's porch and ran.
"Don't you dare say anything to him," Mark said, low and fast. "Not one word. Not now. We'll talk tonight."
And then the front door burst open and Eli came pounding down the hallway yelling "DAD, DAD, DAD," and Mark turned and caught him with both arms and lifted him clean off the floor, all hundred and twenty pounds of him, the way he had not been able to lift him in a year, and held on, and over their son's shoulder his eyes met Laura's for one long, terrible moment, and then he closed them.