At the time I thought it was interest. I thought, oh, she’s taken with him. A woman who notices that much, surely she’ll notice the charming, attentive, energetic man my husband had decided to become for the afternoon.
I was wrong about that. I’d be wrong about a lot of things for the next twenty minutes.
“See, Mom? Dad’s Helping.”
Mason came running back up from the water, soaked to the waist, and grabbed my hand.
“See, Mom? Dad’s helping!”
“I see him, baby.”
And Lauren laughed and mentioned — lightly, in passing — that she’d forgotten to put sunscreen on her shoulders.
Ryan grabbed our bottle off the blanket before I’d even processed the sentence.
“You’ll burn. Turn around, I’ll get your back.”
I stared at him.
What I Watched Him Do
He spread sunscreen very carefully across her shoulders. He asked her twice whether he’d missed a spot.
