They’d met three years ago at Trader Joe’s, while Deb was working as a cashier. Mike got in her line even though it was longer than the others, because he thought she was pretty. Her hair was dyed red and she had a ring in her nose. She was friendly with the customers, asking how their days were going and commenting on the products in their baskets. Later, she’d tell Mike the chit-chat was part of her job, but he still thought she did it better than most. When it was Mike’s turn at the register, he made a joke about the pumpkin display by the entrance—it was a mess, pumpkins falling all over each other—and she laughed in a way that seemed real.

Last fall, Deb had moved into Mike’s house in Live Oak, a suburb northeast of San Antonio. She’d quit Trader Joe’s, with Mike’s encouragement, to focus on finishing her degree. Mike figured they’d get married soon and start a family, though whenever he broached the topic, Deb said she had to get through school before she thought about what came next. When she missed her period, and the test was positive, it felt like everything was falling into place. It was a little stressful because of money, but they’d figure it out like people always had. Even if there’d been another option, Mike wasn’t that type of person and he hoped Deb wasn’t either. She was on the pill, but admitted she’d missed a few doses. Mike hoped she’d missed them on purpose—that she wanted to be a mother, but had been too shy to tell him.

At Deb’s eight-week checkup, the doctor did an ultrasound and said there was a problem. It was a blighted ovum, which meant the sac had developed without an embryo. The tissue would slough off Deb’s uterus within a few weeks.

Deb lay on the exam bed. Mike squeezed her hand. “We’ll try again,” he told her, though they hadn’t exactly been trying in the first place.

“You’ll need to save the remains when they’re expelled,” the doctor said. He was an older man with a gray mustache.

“For the funeral,” Mike said.

“That’s right.”

“Even though there’s no embryo?” Deb said.

The doctor nodded gravely. “All thwarted children must receive a proper burial.”

He gave them a pamphlet detailing the requirements, and told them their case was in the system. The state of Texas would await proof of the burial. They’d also have to pay a fine.

On the drive home, Deb was fired up. “These new laws are ridiculous,” she said. “They want to punish us, for what? A miscarriage?”

“We’ll get through it,” Mike said. He wasn’t quite listening. He was mourning the loss of the child whose future he’d been imagining for the last month. Though he agreed the new laws were silly, he thought a funeral sounded nice.

Sunday morning, Mike woke to Deb moaning beside him, the sheet bloody beneath her. She staggered to the bathroom. Mike brought a bowl from the kitchen and she held it between her legs. When she handed the bowl back to him, Mike raised it to the light. Amid clots of tissue he spotted the ovum, a translucent blob the size of an olive.

Deb was still on the toilet. Her skin had a pale, waxy look. “You OK?” Mike said, patting her shoulder.

She smiled up at him weakly. “Better now. I couldn’t wait for that thing to come out.”

Mike didn’t like how she talked about the ovum. With a little more luck, it might have been their first child. “We should do the funeral soon, before it gets too hot,” he said.

Deb groaned. “Can’t we just flush it? I could say it slipped out while I was peeing and I didn’t notice.”

“The fine will be doubled in that case,” Mike reminded her coolly.

Deb got in the shower while Mike went in search of a coffin. In her underwear drawer, he found a velvet box containing a necklace he’d given her for her birthday last year, a pendant in the shape of the letter D. She’d only worn it a few times. He emptied the thwarted child into the box and draped the necklace over her panties, hoping she’d take the hint and wear it once in a while.

They drove north on 281, seeking a good patch of earth. They parked at a Texaco station and walked into the scrub. Mike dug a hole. The mother had to be the last one holding the child, according to state law. Deb dropped the box in a little more roughly than Mike felt comfortable with. He covered it with dirt, then clasped his hands in prayer. He hadn’t been to church since he was a kid, but he remembered the basics. “Lord Jesus, bless this thwarted child, fruit of thy womb,” he intoned.

Deb twitched beside him. “That seems fine,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

When they got home, Deb went to the bedroom to lie down. Mike sat in the living room, reviewing the pamphlet from the doctor’s office. It was titled “Funeral Requirements for Thwarted Children” and it had an image of an empty baby carriage on the front. According to the pamphlet, there was an alternative to paying the fine. They could write a short story honoring the thwarted child by envisioning what its life might have become. The story had to be a minimum of ten pages double-spaced, with an honest attempt at showing rather than telling. Mike figured he’d give it a shot, as he’d prefer not to shell out more money to the government. Lord knew he already paid plenty in taxes.

He tapped out notes on his iPad. Once he got going, the story really flowed. The thwarted child would have become a boy named Patrick. A star student and gifted athlete, Patrick would be recruited to Texas A&M on a football scholarship. He’d marry his college sweetheart, a nice girl named Lacy. Mike would have his own dealership by then, and Patrick would work for him until Mike retired, at which point Patrick would take over the business. The story ended with Mike on his deathbed, surrounded by his loving family.

By the time he was finished, the room had grown dim. Mike submitted the story to the portal, along with photos from the funeral, and went to see what Deb was up to.

For dinner, Mike made a Kirkland steak from the deep freeze, while Deb stuck to her usual beans. She enjoyed beans of all kinds, and cycled through a stash of cans in the pantry—pinto, black, chickpeas. Tonight she’d made lentils, a yellow slop with some greens mixed in.

Mike held out a chunk of steak on the end of his fork. “You lost some blood today.”

“I don’t want your dead cow,” Deb said. “Did you know they stand in their own shit all their lives?”

“Don’t we all,” Mike said, philosophically. Deb smiled.

A minute later, she sighed and said, “OK, give me a bite.”

Mike cut her off a nice chunk. He felt happy, watching her chew. He was still living in the future he’d written for them. She didn’t know where they were headed, but he looked forward to telling her soon.

---

Mike was on his lunch break when he got an email from the Fetal Dignity Board. His story had been rejected and would have to be rewritten. He was instructed to log in to the portal and schedule a meeting with an advisor.

While Mike was rereading the email, Luis entered the break room. He wore his tan suit, his freshly shaved head gleaming under the fluorescent lights. “Sup, Mikey?” he said. “How was your weekend?”

“Not bad,” Mike said, setting down his phone. “Yours?”

“Living the dream. Brought the kids to Calaveras. Took the boat for a spin.”

“Sounds nice,” Mike said. He hated hearing about the boat.

“You OK, buddy?” Luis leaned back against the counter and regarded Mike with concern, like a guidance counselor.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Mike said. And then, before he could stop himself, he added, “Deb had a miscarriage.”

Luis’s face stiffened, and Mike wished he hadn’t told him. “Jeez, man, I’m really sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks. It’s OK.”

“It took us a while, the second time.”

“Really?” Mike said, perking up. Luis had three kids—a teenage girl and two younger boys. Mike had met them all at the Fourth of July picnic last year. He’d been envious, watching Luis with his family. They were around the same age, Mike and Luis. Mike sometimes wondered how he’d fallen so far behind.

“Don’t sweat it,” Luis said, patting Mike’s shoulder. “You’ll try again.”

Mike couldn’t help but feel reassured by Luis. This must have been why Luis was the dealership’s top salesman, while Mike was fourth, behind Gus and the new girl.

The next morning, Mike was making coffee when the doorbell rang. On the stoop was a portly man in his fifties wearing a gray suit and a white Stetson. His name was Ray Boyd and he’d come on behalf of the Fetal Dignity Board.

“We noticed you didn’t schedule a meeting,” Ray said.

“I haven’t had a chance yet,” Mike said. “I’m heading to work right now, Mr. Boyd.”

“If you prefer, I can speak to the mother—Deborah, is that right?”

Mike didn’t want this guy hassling Deb. He brought Ray in and they sat at the kitchen table. Ray opened his briefcase and took out the printed story. The title now made Mike cringe: “Patrick’s Journey.”

“I’m afraid your submission wasn’t up to the board’s standards,” Ray said.

“I spent three hours on it,” Mike said, offended.

“Is three hours really enough time to devote to a thwarted child’s entire life?” Ray said, with a smug look. “And did Deborah help at all?”

Mike felt his face warm. “She helped some.”

“Let me give you an idea of the issues.” Ray flipped through the pages. There were red marks all over them. “‘Patrick was a smart boy.’ That doesn’t tell us much, does it?”

“It tells us he’s smart.”

“Yes, but how is he smart? Does he win spelling bees? Help Deborah calculate sales tax when they’re shopping at H-E-B?”

“Both of those, I guess.”

“It would be better to pick one, and go into more detail.” Ray flipped to the last page, where there was some typed commentary. “The global issue, Mike, is that the story has no conflict. Which means it’s not much of a story at all. Patrick’s good at everything, and gets whatever he wants.”

“Isn’t that how life ought to be?”

Ray smiled, a bit sadly. “Maybe. But it’s not how life is.” He leaned back in his chair. “The board wants more, you know, pathos. They want to see Patrick get kicked around a little. They want an arc. A downfall, dark night of the soul kind of thing, then a path toward redemption. You know what I mean?”

Mike heard Deb stirring in the bedroom. “Mr. Boyd, I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew here,” he said quietly. “How about I just pay the fine?”

“I’m afraid that’s no longer an option, now that you’ve submitted a draft,” Ray said. “You’ll need to see the project through or face criminal penalties for desecration of a thwarted child. I believe the minimum sentence is sixty days in jail, for both parents.”

Ray stood and tipped his hat. “And tell Deborah she needs to pitch in.”

---

“I can’t believe you wrote all this,” Deb said that night, paging through the draft.

“Sure did,” Mike said proudly. He’d brought home dinner from the taco truck by the dealership. Deb hadn’t touched her quesadilla, which sat sadly in its bed of foil. He could see the cheese getting hard.

“I didn’t know there was an option, beside paying the fine.”

“It was in the pamphlet.” Mike took a bite of chicken taco. His gaze drifted to the sink, which held a pot with soapy water. So Deb had eaten her nightly beans before he got home. “Ray said you’ll need to help with the next draft.”

“Well, I never agreed to that,” Deb said. “I have exams coming up.”

“I figured.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Mike said. “I’ll take care of it.”

Mike spent all night rewriting the story. He dug into his past, modeling aspects of Patrick on himself. In the story, Patrick and Mike butted heads, same as Mike and his father had. Patrick developed a drinking problem in college, and was kicked off the football team after getting a DUI. Lacy wasn’t a nice girl from class, but an ex-girlfriend from high school who he ran into at a bar in his hometown. He knocked her up and felt he had no choice but to marry her. After that, Patrick got sober, found religion, and became a pillar of his community. He and Mike mended their relationship, and the story ended the same way the first version had—with Mike dying, his family gathered at his bedside in the big house he and Deb would build in the country.

The new draft was twenty pages long. Mike was sure it was the best one the board had ever received. But two days later, Ray was back on their doorstep.

“The board had trouble with the father-son relationship,” Ray said. “They didn’t understand why Patrick was so insolent.”

Deb was awake this time. She stood behind Mike’s chair, arms crossed over her chest.

“He’s a moody teenager,” Mike said. “Isn’t that enough?”

“They thought the father must have played more of a role,” Ray said. “The father is portrayed as stern, but caring, which makes Patrick seem like a delinquent. The board doesn’t take kindly to defamation of the thwarted child.”

“Mr. Boyd, can’t you give us a break here?” Deb said, joining them at the table. “There wasn’t even an embryo. No chance of it becoming a child. This is all a little morbid, isn’t it?”

“Deb,” Mike said uneasily, placing his hand on her thigh.

“I’m afraid it’s not up to me,” Ray said. “I’ll leave you two to consider your options.”

---

They sat at the table, reviewing the sheet Ray had given them. They now had three options for recognizing the dignity of the thwarted child, specially designed for them by the board:

A. The parents of the thwarted child may render a mural depicting no fewer than three (3), and no more than six (6), phases in the thwarted child’s life. This mural shall be displayed in a publicly accessible area for no less than one (1) month’s duration. Its quality will be judged by a panel of working artists and art professors from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

B. The parents of the thwarted child may write a play dramatizing the thwarted child’s life, and perform the play with a cast of no fewer than three (3) actors in addition to the thwarted child’s parents, at least one (1) time in a publicly accessible area, with an audience of no fewer than ten (10) individuals who are not members of the production. Its quality will be judged by a panel consisting of no fewer than one (1) New York City-based playwright whose own work has enjoyed significant critical acclaim, along with professors from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

C. The parents of the thwarted child may marry, conceive a new child, and carry it through to delivery. If a healthy birth, along with legal marriage, is transacted within one (1) year of the date of the first story’s submission, the parents of the thwarted child shall be absolved of obligation and any corresponding fines. If the parents fail to complete one of the above options, each will be compelled to serve a minimum of sixty (60) days in a Texas state correctional facility.

“This is crazy,” Deb said. “We should have just paid the fine.”

“You’re right, we should have,” Mike said irritably. “But we didn’t and now we have to find a way out of this. So which one should we choose?”

“How about Option A?”

“Neither of us can draw.” He pretended to look over the sheet again. “What about Option C?” It was the obvious choice. Deb had just turned 32. Women liked to think they had all the time in the world, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

“That seems like a lot of pressure,” Deb said. “I’d hate to do it on such a tight timeline, with the state breathing down our necks.”

“It’s something we’ll want to do eventually, right?” Mike dared to ask.

Deb looked at the paper. “Let’s do the play.”

---

Mike got aPlaywriting for Dummies book from the library and spent the next three nights adapting “Patrick’s Journey” into a play. On the third night, Deb came out of the bedroom, where she’d been studying. She perched on the arm of his chair and asked how it was coming along.

“Almost done,” Mike said. “Wanna take a look?”

Deb settled onto the couch with the iPad. Mike was nervous. She hadn’t read the original story, only skimmed the board’s comments, and he wasn’t sure what she’d think. After a few minutes, she looked over at him, her eyes teary. “It’s so sad,” she said. “But also beautiful. It’s about your childhood, isn’t it? In real life, you were Patrick.”

“In some ways.”

“Was your dad really that mean?”

“He was worse.” His dad had been a drunk with a bad temper. He’d died five years ago, in a care facility. Mike felt guilty for not visiting more, though when he had, his dad didn’t bother turning off the TV.

“What about Lacy?” Deb asked. “Is she based on an old girlfriend of yours?”

Mike paused. “Yes,” he said. “But in real life, her name was Rose.”

“Did she get pregnant?”

Through the window, a car passed down the street, one of its headlights burned out. “No,” Mike said. “That part’s made up.”

They talked more about the play. Who might come to audition, and who they’d invite to be in the audience. Mike felt close to Deb again, which was a relief. She’d been so busy with school, and sometimes, he was afraid she didn’t like him anymore.

Deb made a flyer that read, Try out for Patrick’s Journey: The Play! Your chance to be a star! and that weekend, they went around posting the flyers on bulletin boards in laundromats and coffee shops. On Monday, Mike put up a flyer on the break room corkboard. To make space he took down a poster for a high school choir concert that had come and gone back in February.

---

Mike was sitting at the break room table, eating his usual turkey and swiss, when Luis and Carla came in.

“Trying to get a discount in exchange for pizza!” Carla said. She was the first female member of the sales team, at least since Mike had been working there. She was short, with tan skin and dyed blonde hair.

“I told the guy, I can’t pay for my kid’s braces with pizza. Wood-fired or not,” Luis said.

“Good for you. The nerve of some people.”

“Well, like I said, he’s a friend.” Luis paused by the corkboard, looking at Mike’s flyer. “What’s this about?”

He turned to Mike. “Did you see this?” But before Mike could answer, Carla scoffed.

“A play?” she said. “I didn’t know they did those anymore.”

Luis retrieved the crumpled choir poster from the trash and smoothed it on the counter. “That was my daughter’s concert,” he said. “Who would throw it out like that? Like it’s a piece of trash.”

Mike began gathering his things.

“Well, it did happen a few months ago, didn’t it?” Carla said gently.

---

The state had arranged for them to use the back lot of the Valley Hi H-E-B for auditions, rehearsals, and the performance, which was scheduled for Friday. Mike and Deb set up a card table in the back lot with a sign: Patrick’s Journey Auditions. They sat on folding chairs behind the table. Minutes ticked by.

“What if no one comes?” Deb said.

“We put up a lot of flyers,” Mike said, though he was starting to worry, too.

A group of skater kids drifted to the back lot. They skated circles on the pavement and tried to do tricks off the wheel stops. While they were circling, a white Honda pulled in, and out stepped a tall, broad-shouldered young man with red hair and freckles. The man approached the table, his eyes cast to the side, like he was trying to be slick about it.

“Hey, I’m Tyler,” he said. “My PO says this will count as community service. Is that true?”

“I’m not sure,” Mike said carefully. “You done any acting before?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s OK.” Mike handed Tyler a page of the script. “Let’s try reading a scene. You can be Patrick.”

It was the scene where Patrick had just gotten a DUI and been kicked off the football team. “You need to get your life together,” Mike read. “You had so much promise. You’re wasting it all. You let the team down.”

“I don’t care about the stupid team,” Tyler read, in a flat voice. “You’re a washed-up old man who never did anything good with his life. So you take it out on me, because you’re a coward.”

Mike’s veins lit up, hearing Tyler saying these words. It didn’t matter that his delivery was stiff. He was Patrick, as if Mike had conjured him.

“That’s great,” he said. “You’ve got the part.”

Tyler shrugged. “Cool.”

While they’d been reading, a few more people had gathered around the table.

“What’s it pay?” asked a wiry older man wearing all black, holding an H-E-B bag.

“Nothing,” Mike said. “Some sandwiches during rehearsals.”

“Can I do an accent?”

“What kind of accent?”

“I can do a British guy,” the man said.

Mike said that wouldn’t be necessary. He cast the man, whose name was Skip, as the vindictive football coach. A young woman lingered near the table. She looked familiar, though Mike couldn’t place her. He had her read for Lacy. Tyler stuck around, gamely, to run lines.

“I’m too young to be a dad,” Tyler said.

“Patrick, you have to trust in God’s plan!” the girl wailed. She was perfect. She even looked a little like Rose.

“What’s your name?” Mike asked.

“Renee,” she said, and that’s when it clicked.

“You’re Luis’s daughter.”

“Yeah,” she said shyly. “He wouldn’t shut up about my choir poster getting taken down. I got curious.”

“You’re in high school?” Deb said.

“Just one more year,” Renee said.

Mike glanced at Deb, and she shook her head. Bad idea. But no one else had come to audition, and it was almost 9. Mike told Renee she had the part, and she pumped a fist in triumph.

“You might not want to tell your dad, though,” Mike said, feeling sleazy.

“Don’t worry,” Renee said. “It’ll be our secret.”

---

In rehearsal, Deb kept trying to change her lines, but Mike insisted they perform the play as he’d written it. On the second night, they were running through it from the top, starting with the scene in which Deb held a bundle of rags representing Patrick as a baby.

“All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mom,” Deb read from the script.

“Hold up,” Mike said, walking over to her. “Deb, can you try that again with a little more heart?”

Deb glared at him. “It’s not easy, considering this isn’t something I’d ever say.”

“Maybe if you’d helped me write it, it would sound more like you,” Mike said.

“I didn’t want to write anything in the first place,” Deb said. “If it were up to me, we would have paid the fine.”

“You mean I would have paid it,” Mike said. “Like I pay for everything.”

Deb’s face flushed. She walked off toward H-E-B. Mike glanced at the other cast members. Renee and Tyler had been whispering about something, but they’d fallen silent, having perceived unfolding drama. Skip sat on the cooler, smoking and staring at the highway.

Mike trailed Deb into the store. In the cheese aisle, he apologized and persuaded her to come back and finish rehearsal. He thought they’d smoothed it over, but Deb seemed distant on the drive home. As he eased the truck into the garage, he asked what was on her mind.

“I don’t want to do this,” she said. “It’s humiliating. And you’re being kind of an asshole about the whole thing.”

Panic rose within Mike. Deb had to do the play. It wasn’t only the board they had to win over. Their future happiness was at stake. He felt that the play corresponded, somehow, to reality. If they could not make a convincing performance of their future, how could they hope to achieve it?

“You liked the script when you read it,” he said.

“I only read a few scenes,” Deb said. “I didn’t know you’d written me as a braindead housewife.”

She unbuckled her seatbelt and went into the house. Mike followed her to the kitchen. She was being dramatic, and he had an urge to provoke her. “I could call Ray Boyd,” he said, as she poured a glass of water from the filtered tap. “See if Option C’s still on the table.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“We could start trying tonight. Get married at the courthouse this weekend. Why not?” He’d begun saying this to taunt her, but it sounded like a pretty good plan.

Deb was quiet.

“Well?” he said. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Getting married,” he said. “Having a family.”

He expected her to say that of course she wanted those things. She just needed a little more time. But instead, she said, “I don’t know.”

Mike felt lightheaded as she went on about how she wanted to finish her degree before she thought about what would come next, like she’d always told him. She might want to travel. She might want to live in another city for a few years, building her career. There were lots of things she might want to do before settling down.

Deb had stopped talking. They were still standing in the kitchen. She put her hand on his arm. “What are you thinking?” she said.

Mike was thinking he was some sucker she’d gotten to pay her bills while she was in school. He was thinking she was no better than a prostitute. But of course he wouldn’t say that. He loved her. He wanted them to grow old together.

“You might want kids someday,” he said.

“Someday,” she said. “Sure.”

He kissed her forehead and said they’d talk about it later. Of course she wouldn’t want to think about getting pregnant now, with all the nonsense the state was putting them through. They’d do the play, and things would settle down, and he’d convince Deb she wanted a family, the same way he could land a customer on a car.

---

Mike and Deb arrived at the back lot to find four rows of chairs already assembled. Mike parked his truck so its headlights would illuminate the stage area, whose boundary Tyler had sketched with chalk. A cluster of forest-green dumpsters provided a backdrop.

The cast stood behind the dumpsters, peering through a gap as the audience filtered in. Ray Boyd arrived first, with two other men in suits. Mike recognized a few of Deb’s old coworkers from Trader Joe’s, and a man with round glasses who he figured was the New York City playwright, come to judge their work.

Mike turned to the cast. “OK, team,” he said. “Like we practiced. Hit your marks. Trust the material. You’ve got this.”

Renee and Tyler exchanged a smirk, but he could tell they were excited.

“Afterparty at my place,” said Skip. “The Motor Inn a few blocks north. I’ve got whiskey.”

“Maybe,” Mike said. He put his hands on Deb’s shoulders. “You ready?”

Deb nodded, her mouth set. “Let’s get this over with.”

Mike went out first to say a few words. “Thanks everyone for coming tonight,” he said. The audience, which had grown to around twenty people, slowly quieted. “We’ve worked hard on this thing all week, and I think it’s really something,” he continued. “I think you’re going to enjoy it. Without further ado, I give you Patrick’s Journey: The Play.”

Skip turned off the headlights. When they came back up, Deb stood onstage holding the bundle of rags. “I’m so proud to have birthed this beautiful boy,” she said. “All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mom.”

She’d put more heart into the lines, like Mike had asked her to. He was moved by her effort, and hoped it meant she still loved him. Maybe their argument the night before had brought them closer.

In the next scene, Mike, Deb, and Tyler sat at the card table. Patrick was 10 and he’d just won a spelling bee.

“We’re proud of you, sweetie,” Deb said.

“You get your brains from your mom,” Mike said, patting Tyler’s hand. As he looked into Tyler’s eyes, he felt disoriented, and couldn’t remember his next line.

“I hope I’ll get to follow in your footsteps,” Tyler prompted.

“Yes,” Mike said. “You can take over the business after I retire.”

“I’d sure like that, Dad,” Tyler said.

From there, Patrick’s life took a bad turn. He was in college, drinking too much. Tyler drank lustily from a Jack Daniel’s bottle they’d filled with apple juice. “I always wanted my dad to be proud of me,” he said. “I don’t know why he had to be such a jerk all the time.”

Skip entered from stage right. “Drinking again, Thompson?” he said, in that awful English accent Mike hadn’t managed to convince him to drop.

“None of your business, old man,” Tyler said.

“You’re off the team,” Skip said.

“This is BS.” Tyler chugged the apple juice with new desperation. Mike inspected the audience and was pleased by their attentiveness.

Renee sauntered into the headlights. She wore lipstick and a tight red dress, her hair in a high ponytail.

“Hey, Patrick,” she said. “Remember me?”

“I sure do, hot stuff,” Tyler said. They embraced, pantomiming a kiss.

In the next scene, Lacy was pregnant. Renee had stuck a beach ball under her dress. “I’m having this baby with or without you,” she said.

“I’m too young to be a dad,” Tyler said, just as Mike had, sixteen years ago. Mike closed his eyes, remembering the afternoon he and Rose had sat in his truck outside her parents’ house in Houston. It was the end of a wild summer together. They’d camped all over Texas, making love beneath the stars. They were in love, and hoped to continue their relationship after Mike went back to school in San Antonio. But when Rose told him she was pregnant, he panicked. He promised to help support them financially, but he wasn’t ready to be a father. He had never met his son, though he looked at Rose’s Facebook sometimes, and was proud of what a strong young man he was becoming. Now, Patrick would do what Mike wished he had done sixteen years ago. He would be a good man, the man Mike wished he had been—the man he still could be, if only someone would give him a chance.

Mike opened his eyes. Tyler was down on one knee. “Marry me, Lacy,” he said. “We’ll figure it out together.”

“Oh, Patrick,” Renee said. “I love you.”

Tyler stood and they embraced. They began kissing. It took Mike a moment to realize they were no longer pantomiming. They were making out, with real passion, Tyler’s hand at the small of Renee’s back, Renee’s hand on his neck, pulling him closer.

“That’s enough,” a voice boomed from the parking lot’s outer reaches. A man in a tan suit approached the stage. Mike watched, transfixed, as if the play had taken on a life of its own. Luis grabbed Renee’s hand and pulled her away from Tyler. Renee squirmed from his grip.

“Dad, oh my god,” she said. “You’re ruining everything.”

“You heard her,” Tyler said, squaring up to Luis.

“She’s 17,” Luis said.

“It’s just a play, man. You better get out of my face.”

Tyler shoved Luis; Luis shoved him back. Mike rushed to the stage, wedging himself between the men before they could begin throwing punches. He whispered in Tyler’s ear, reminding him he was on probation. Tyler nodded, his jaw clenched, and retreated.

Luis’s head was flushed and beaded with sweat. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said. “You can’t have your own kid, so you mess with mine?”

Mike willed himself to stay calm, though he’d have loved nothing more than to punch Luis in the face. He explained that they weren’t doing this for fun; it was a legal obligation. He hadn’t known Renee was Luis’s daughter when she auditioned. “But Luis, she’s a natural. She’s great.”

“Please, Dad,” Renee said. “This’ll be great for my college applications.”

Luis glanced at the audience, seeming uncertain, even a little embarrassed. Mike drew closer to him. “There’s only one more scene,” he said softly. “You have everything, Luis. Let me have this.”

Luis looked at Mike for a long moment, his eyes full of pity. “One more scene,” he said. “Then we’re going home.”

“Thank you, Daddy!” Renee said, throwing her arms around him.

Mike turned to the audience, forcing a laugh. “Sorry about that, folks. Just give us a minute to reset the stage.”

“Mike, I think we’ve seen enough,” Ray said from his seat. “Why don’t we call it a night.”

Deb clutched Mike’s elbow. “Let’s go home,” she whispered. “This is so embarrassing.”

In the glow of the headlights, Deb’s face was as beautiful as it had been the first time he saw her, standing behind a register at Trader Joe’s. As Mike looked into her wide, pleading eyes, something hardened within him. She couldn’t always be the one who decided. The one who gave or withheld.

“Let us do the last scene,” he told Ray. “You can’t judge the play until you see how it ends.”

Ray consulted with the other suited men, and they agreed to allow the show to proceed. Skip turned off the lights while they set the stage. Mike took Deb’s arm, guiding her into position. He felt her resistance, but he no longer cared.

When the light came back up, it was tinted green. Skip had laid a silk scarf over the headlights—Renee’s idea, to symbolize the transition between life and death. Mike lay on the card table, his eyes closed, his body covered with a quilt. It was just like he’d imagined. He’d lived a good life and now he was dying. Everything had worked out in the end.

“We love you, Dad,” Patrick said.

“You’re the best father-in-law a girl could ask for,” added Lacy.

The parking lot was still, the only sound the buzzing of insects in the bushes behind them, and beyond, the distant wail of cars on the interstate. Mike held his eyes closed, bathed in the green light of the future. He waited for Deb to say her line.

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