Monday nearly always meant a hectic work day, so Clay barely had time to think about the weekend's fire, but thoughts still plagued the back of his mind. Moving to Mountain Springs made it easier to forget about how his own business in Scottsdale had suffered at the hands of vandals, but now he couldn't help wondering if the arsonist truly was blindly targeting any and all businesses owned by Lake End residents.

After a long day of work, he finally got home after work on Monday to find Ellie and Dylan making tacos together, the two of them laughing in a way that should make him feel good, because his wife seemed happy and his son seemed happy and he should be happy about that.

Avery seemed happy, too, sitting next to Talia and coloring with crayons. The two of them loved creating things together. Clay went over to peer at their drawings, noticing that Talia had, once more, selected green, yellow, and black crayons for her drawing. "It's me and Daddy," she told him.

"You always color your pictures with these three colors," he told her. "Are they your favorites?"

"No. They'we Daddy's favowites."

Clay looked over at Dylan. "Black, green, and yellow are your favorite colors?"

"Always have been," Dylan said.

A terrible thought made residence in Clay's mind right then, but he chose to ignore it, instead asking Dylan, "How'd today go?"

"The preschool search? Not so well. The job search? There are definitely some places in need of mechanics, so hopefully I'll be employed by the end of the week."

Banishing the thought he'd just harbored, Clay smiled at Dylan, feeling a sense of rare pride for doing something right as a father: teaching Dylan about cars when he was a teenager. He'd only taught Dylan the basics, but that was enough to get him interested in gaining more knowledge. That knowledge had kept him afloat the past few years, gotten him a position as an apprentice where he repaired golf-carts in Phoenix, and then as an assistant auto-technician at a privately owned repair shop. He'd never been paid that well, but he'd still been able to feed and clothe and shelter Clay's granddaughter. If it weren't for the credit card debt and the court fines Dylan had racked up when he was 19, he would be doing pretty well right now.

Clay hoped that, with the experience Dylan had accrued, he would be able to find a decent position that paid okay, even though he didn't have any sort of certification.

Still, Dylan could be doing better. A part of Clay wanted to encourage him to go back to college, and even offer to help with the cost; he could bring Dylan to his office and show him that CAD software wasn't as dull or as difficult as he probably thought it was, show him he could learn Clay's job in just a few years and have a much brighter financial future ahead of him.

That offer wouldn't be desirable to Dylan, though; Clay could barely get him to finish high school.

Dylan's cell phone rang right then, and he stopped setting out the veggies and shredded cheese to answer it.

"Hello?...Seriously?...Yes...Wow, I can't thank you enough...Don't worry, I won't. Thanks again." After hanging up the phone, he announced, "Talia is in at Lake End."

"No way!" Ellie said. "I thought Trina was bluffing."

The mention of Trina made Clay's stomach twist, just slightly. "What do you mean?"

"She met him earlier today," Ellie explained. "After the office lady told us there was no way Talia was getting into the school. Trina told us she would pull strings. And," Ellie made a pulling gesture here, "She pulled them."

Her gesture reminded Clay of a hand-job gesture, and his palms started sweating. "That's great," he said, and he did feel grateful Talia had gotten into the preschool. It had been worrying to think Dylan might be employed before they found childcare for her; he didn't think Ellie would have liked that, because then the childcare would have been her responsibility.

But part of Clay wished he could keep Trina completely separate from his family. That part of him felt angry at Trina for butting into his familial affairs, even though he knew she was just helping.

Suppressing these thoughts, Clay helped the little kids get ready for dinner, telling them how they would be going to the same school together, sitting them down at the table and letting them put black olives over each of their fingers before popping them in their mouths. Talia called herself an olive king and Dylan smiled at her, a smile Clay missed and loved seeing. Then Ellie frowned at Clay and told Avery, "Food is for eating, not for playing with." She could be a real downer sometimes.

*

After Avery and Talia were asleep, Clay prepared himself to enjoy another night in with his wife and his son.

But after a half hour, he realized it was impossible. Dylan had opened some of the boxes from his car and extracted a South Park DVD set. Clay hadn't appreciated that show when Dylan was a teenager, and he liked it even less right then.

And the thing that had him fuming was Ellie eating the show up like her favorite flavored ice cream (mint chip). Never mind the five years of political correctness she'd been building up. She'd given Clay the silent treatment for two days once because he'd told her he didn't want to stop using the "r-word," at least not when Avery wasn't listening, yet this South Park show was throwing around slurs all over the place. They said "fags" and Ellie didn't even flinch; she laughed.

That's what Clay watched right then. Not the show—but Ellie and Dylan, laughing. Laughing and talking, reminiscing on old memories and inside jokes, a nostalgia that this stupid show created between them. They seemed to speak a language he could only partially understand, to share some commonalities he would never understand. The strength of their bond made itself as obvious as a visible rope. And Clay felt like that rope kept tightening, like every five minutes they would scoot closer to each other on the couch.

No. Jealousy and paranoia were getting the better of him, just as they had been earlier in the evening. Ellie wouldn't try to make him feel inadequate. Dylan wouldn't, either. They weren't trying to make him feel like his bond with Ellie had become fraying yarn on the verge of snapping; those feelings had come from a dark place inside him, and he needed to ignore them, to deny their existence until they ceased to exist. Dylan still sat on the left square of the couch, and Ellie still sat on the right square, both of their elbows resting on opposite arms of the couch.

Dylan started singing along to an episode right then, some horrific song about Paris Hilton being a whore, and Ellie laughed harder than Clay had seen her laugh in years. It felt like the old Ellie had returned, the one who'd used to dye her hair unnaturally yellow and cuss like a construction worker and come on to him, the one who didn't care about sugar replacements and impressing other parents, the one who didn't act like sex with Clay was the last thing on earth she wanted to do.

Nostalgia had hit Clay too, just not the same way it was hitting them.

He reflected on the Ellie he once knew, realizing that becoming a parent had done a lot of damage to her. Like the whole time since Avery had made his appearance, she'd been trying to fit this image of what she thought a good, normal, moral adult should be, even though that wasn't her. Moving to Colorado had only made it worse.

It had been her idea to move to Mountains Springs. Their coupling had been a topic of ridicule back in Arizona, but he'd shielded her from most of the negative comments. He'd endured the most name calling, his business took a hit, and people who'd once been his friends told him to leave town; the whole while, he'd kept his chin up, even when things had gotten really out of hand.

He'd had the unlucky privilege of running into Ellie's father before they moved, who had told him, "You robbed my baby girl of the chance to live a normal life!" Clay wouldn't say anything back because he'd already punched that man once, and he didn't want to start anything new, not with the chance that it would anger Ellie again, not with the chance that it would cause people to say more of the terrible things they'd been saying about him, and not with the chance that Ellie's dad would really press charges despite her pleadings.

Even though he'd faced the brunt of the criticism, it was Ellie who wanted to leave; she'd begged him for years. She'd made that decision, and Clay obliged: he gave her a new life, a Mountain Springs life, where they could be free of judgment, where they could start over.

But starting over for Ellie had meant becoming a new Ellie, a different Ellie, a watered-down Ellie, who Clay quite frankly didn't like as much. The transition started with Avery's birth, but their time in Mountain Springs had solidified it, made it complete.

Until right then. Dylan's return had made Ellie feel suddenly comfortable enough to slip into her old skin, to smoke cigarettes and watch politically incorrect South Park episodes. Why couldn't Clay offer her that comfort? He didn't know. He didn't know and it pissed him off.

And thinking about how Ellie used to want him made him think about how Trina currently wanted him, which made him feel less guilty about Trina, because the Ellie he married six years ago was no longer the Ellie he was with. Ellie should want to be with him right then; she should want to listen to his fears about the arsonist and comfort him and tell him that there is no way his office building could be vandalized twice.

But if the Ellie he was with didn't want to be with him, if she would rather sit on the couch and watch horrific cartoons with his son until she fell asleep than fall asleep in Clay's arms, then he wouldn't feel bad about going to be with someone who actually wanted to fall asleep in his arms.

He texted Trina.

Dylan saw. "Work stuff?"

"Yep," Clay said. "You two don't mind if I get out for a bit, do you?"

"Not at all," Ellie said, and he hated how, even though she sounded nice when she said it, all he heard was that she wanted him to go out, to leave her and his son alone in their happiness.

But Dylan looked at him suspiciously, the slightest hint of a glare on the corner of his mouth. Clay assumed he imagined it.