“I know.”
“If I had known, I never would have asked.”
“I know.”
She looked toward Mason.
“Your son is remarkable.”
I smiled faintly.
“I have a daughter his age,” she continued. “I hope she would stand up for me like that.”
Then she looked toward Ryan.
“I don’t know anything about your marriage. That’s not my business.”
She paused.
“But I do know that the version of himself Ryan presents as a husband and father didn’t match what I saw today.”
I looked down.
Then Lauren said something I still remember.
“And the clarity Mason showed? Children learn that somewhere.”
She looked at me.
“He learned it from you.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
Then she walked away.
About forty minutes later, Ryan returned and sat beside me.
For a while, neither of us said anything.
We watched Mason throwing the football around in the shallow water.
