He was hilarious as a kid. Even as a baby he was really smart, and could read moods really well. If Al or I or any or of our friends was sad, he’d grab their finger until they looked at him, and then he would grin. Al would always laugh at this and call him a charmer. He had a really close relationship to Kallie, too. She was always more introverted and shy than he was, but he was always much more gentle with her than he was with the little boys we had over sometimes, and seemed to be more quiet himself when he was around her. For her part, she completely doted on him, and was always watching over him.

Alice was still writing and occasionally going on short trips to promote her books as well as several essays and articles she was writing for various publications. Since she and Jenny had the same publisher, they got to do a lot of their promotional work together, which I thought was nice. They weren’t the best of friends, but they got along well enough, which relieved me. I’d been scared that they wouldn’t. It made it a lot easier for Shane and me, honestly.

Anyway, Al and I were still working hard, but trying to spend as much time with our kids as possible. It was made a little difficult since we both had things we needed to do, but our friends and family were always happy to watch them for a little while. I was glad of that, because sometimes I wanted some time alone with my wife. I tried not to be greedy and only asked Shane to take the kids once a month or so, but I missed the opportunity to just hold Alice and I think she’d missed it too, since the kids had been born. We loved them dearly and adored spending time with them, but we came to cherish our time alone together since we got so little of it.

My parents and even Al’s mother helped us out a lot, though. My dad loved both kids and would make any excuse he could think of to take them for a few hours. Sometimes he’d come to the house unannounced in the middle of the day and tell Alice and I to go out for lunch or something while he stayed with his grandkids. We did, and when we got home he always seemed so happy that we invited him to stay for dinner. Usually, that turned into an invitation to stay the night in the guest room since I didn’t want him driving back to Orange County in the dark.