He did. He baited their hooks and showed them how to cast. When one of them, a six-year-old named Maddie, caught a bluegill the size of her hand, he laughed so loud you could hear him all the way up at the barn.
Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, I saw Cindy walking down toward the dock with a paper plate in her hand.
My whole body went tight.
She stopped at the edge of the dock, about ten feet from where Dad was sitting with the kids. She stood there for a moment.
Then she called out, “Leon? You want some potato salad?”
Dad turned around. He’d heard her clearly, from ten feet away.
“I’d love some, Cindy. Thank you.”
She walked the plate out to him, handed it over very carefully with both hands, and then walked back to the bank, well away from the edge.
When she passed me on her way back up the hill, she gave me a small, embarrassed smile.
