I Want to Show You More (9780802193742) by Jamie Quatro Page A

time, here.
    â€œI think I killed one,” Grady said the next morning. He came into the cottage and took a wide stance in front of the breakfast table, hands on his hips. He was wearing just his swim trunks. “I think I had it out of the water too long.” His chin shook.
    Neil went down to the dock with him. Grady pointed to a white fish struggling on its side in the shallow water beneath the dock.
    â€œWell, that happens,” Neil said.
    â€œI couldn’t find the rag,” Grady said. “I was afraid I’d get cut if I didn’t hold it with a rag.” He started to cry.
    â€œHey,” Neil said. He put an arm around Grady’s thin shoulders. “It’s just a fish.”
    â€œA stupid sheephead,” Grady said. “You can’t even eat them.” He tossed his head so that his bangs fell over his eyes.
    Neil squatted beside him to help clean up his tackle. He noticed the dirt under Grady’s toenails, the scrapes on his shins, the way he turned the lures around in his fingers, fitting each one into its compartment like a puzzle piece. Grady walked up to the shed, pole over his shoulder. The tip caught in a branch of the maple, and, using more force than was necessary, he yanked it from the tree. Neil watched the torn leaves twirl and settle onto the grass.
    He’d had this idea, when Myra was born, then Grady and, six years later, the twins (their miracle year, the cancer gone into remission but really only on pause, gathering itself), that he would guide them. He taught Management, Organizational Behavior, and Leadership Theory at Westminster College in Georgia. At home, he thought, he would be the CEO of his own little company. He would set directions, be there to problem-solve, be a servant-leader. And in return, they would need him. It would be enough.
    But the kids seemed only to need Jocelyn—milk, comfort, the lilt of her voice. Fine—Jocelyn would need him. But over the years this hadn’t turned out to be the case either. She was brilliant, beautiful, and self-contained. She came from money and love.
    Neil’s own father was on his fourth marriage. His mother died when he was three. He had no full-blood siblings, only half-brothers and half-sisters he didn’t keep track of. Jocelyn’s family, the kids, their life together, summers at the lake—he’d grown dependent on all of it. He’d created the family he never had. He was the needy one.
    And when she started pulling away after the final diagnosis, having panic attacks and bouts of depression where she refused to get out of bed, he thought, Now she’ll need me . And she did. He would bring the kids in to see her when she wanted them, take them out when she started to cry.
    One evening, before he hired a part-time nanny, Neil came home from work and found Grady marching on top of the coffee table. He was singing. Ben and Effie, two years old then, were naked; Myra was sitting upright on the couch. “Where’s Mommy?” he asked.
    â€œIn the bathroom,” Myra said. “She said to take turns singing till you got home.”
    The bathroom door was locked. Neil fumbled at the doorknob with a screwdriver; then he kicked in the door.
    He found Jocelyn curled in the empty bathtub. “Did you hear them out there?” she said.
    The next day, she told the doctor, “My children are angels and I can’t be in the same room with them.”
    That evening, James took them all out on the boat. Grady wanted to try his new kneeboard. “Check this out, Dad,” Grady had said that afternoon, showing him the board his grandfather bought him—streaks of red and orange flames, cartoon boys with wild hair and threatening facial expressions. “No fins. I can do three-sixties on this thing.”
    â€œThe guy at the marina said they’re easy for kids to get up on,” James said. “I thought it’d be good for