For Lucy

Thirty seconds. That’s all it takes.

“I’m meeting with another couple tonight after dinner. They invited me to their house. Do you want to come?” Tatum asks as she pours us coffee.

I butter our toast and slide eggs onto our plates. We’ve established a great morning routine since Lucy moved out.

Up at five.

Sex.

Jog.

Shower.

Coffee, eggs, toast.

Long kiss goodbye at seven.

The fact that we are empty nesters at this point in our life is incredibly bittersweet. We would trade all routines and free time to have Austin here to take to football practice or to teach him how to mow the lawn like a perfectionist—like all the Riley men.

“Yeah. I’d love to meet them.” I set our plates on the table.

Tatum has met with so many families who have lost a child to drowning. She’s including excerpts of their experiences in her book. I’m so proud of her. She now can talk to people about Austin without starting it with “Our son died.” Now, like me, she tells Austin’s real story. All the wonderful things about him, and then … like a sad asterisk, she ends with the fact that he drowned in our swimming pool and we could have prevented it. And it’s now our mission to prevent it from happening to other families.

“I was talking with Melanie yesterday. You remember her? Her son drowned two years ago.” Tatum pushes up her blue framed glasses.

I nod before taking a sip of my coffee.

“We were discussing how insane it is that there’s so much emphasis by doctors and other experts on things like proper safety restraints and seats for our children in cars. And my god … if your child isn’t up on all of their gazillion vaccinations, you get a long lecture. I’d live with the odds of surviving chicken pox over my child falling into a swimming pool. I bet chicken pox can’t kill a child in thirty seconds. We were the ‘good’ parents. We always made sure our kids were safe in cars. We took them to the doctor. We did all the recommendations to keep them safe. I never … ever recall the doctor talking to us about water safety. And maybe it’s considered a no-brainer, but a child is fourteen times more likely to die from drowning than a car accident. Boys have a seventy-seven percent greater chance of drowning than girls. Why … why is this not shoved into parents’ faces in every parenting book? By every doctor? Why are we not hearing ads about this like the dangers of drunk driving?”

It’s not funny, but I can’t help but smile.

“What?” She takes a breath and gives me a sheepish grin.

“You’re the woman I married … twice. But I see the first version of you is back. I didn’t recognize you for a few years. But here you are … passionate, smart, motivated. Life is less about what we know and more about what we do. I think we always knew having a pool could be dangerous, but we didn’t do the right things to really take the risks seriously. We should have had many layers of protection in place. You’re doing it. You’re making sure people know this isn’t a sidebar to parenting. It’s a real risk. It’s as important as car seats, keeping guns locked in a safe, babyproofing outlets and cabinets.”

After a few seconds, she nods and whispers, “Yes.”

We eat the rest of our breakfast in silence. I’m going into work a few hours late because today we visit Austin’s grave on the seventh anniversary of his drowning.

“Coming?” I call to Tatum, who’s been in the bedroom for a while now.

When she doesn’t respond, I check on her. She’s kneeling on the floor in the closet, the secret door is open, and that birthday present with the blue and silver ribbon is in her hands.

A lump starts to form in my throat as she unwraps the box. I’m so incredibly proud of her. I think it every day. She’s become the brave one in our family.

She slowly pulls out the Build a Bear wearing a neon vest and a hard hat. I can’t breathe as she runs her hands over his face and slides her fingers to its paw. Tatum smiles, ignoring the tears on her cheeks. Leaving one hand on its paw, she lifts her other hand to me.

I take it and squeeze it as she squeezes the bear’s paw to play the recording.

Our son’s voice comes to life, like he’s here in the closet. Like he never died. Like we’re waking from a bad dream to his exuberant smile and boundless energy.

“Austin loves Daddy and dump trucks.”

The End