Sydney was just as troubled as I was.

"I think this only put more oil on the pan", she said. I laughed. It was just a clear image.

"Oh yeah. So, what did you have in mind?" I say as I pull out of the parking lot

I do see that the two police officers are still parked across the street, so I salute them as I pass them.

Officer Shaffer sees me but doesn't salute me back.

"I was thinking maybe a rotisserie chicken, iceberg lettuce, a can of peas, a container of mayo, a box of cereal, a pint of milk, a box of either 6 blueberry or carrot muffins, a small container of margarine, a few apples, and perhaps oranges since we are in Florida. And why not a few bottles of water? I don't trust their water source"

I laugh. "I mean, with the store, but sure. You seem to have thought of it all for food?"

"I always do", she says.

"What do you mean, you always do?"

"I don't know. I have a sort of running tally in my mind of what I think we should eat. I keep track of what food we have and, so, a list of what we need"

I laugh. "Seriously?"

"You don't?" she says, confused.

"Nope. I know what's in the fridge when I open the door and see in it"

"Huh", she says.

"I hope you aren't judging me in that pretty head of yours"

She hesitates.

"You are?" I say.

"No, I am judging myself."

"Well, don't. Because we are about to pull into the Publix, and well, I want a chicken salad myself", I say, laughing.

"I never told you it's what I was doing"

"Syd, please... the peas and mayo gave it up"

"Since when do you like salads?" she says.

I smile. "I don't. But I like yours"

She laughs.

"It's the ton of mayo? I know it is"

"It's the lack of anything else, I think"

She laughs. "I know how you hate loose corn and olives, but you usually enjoy carrots"

"You forgot the scallion"

"Well, I don't like them either. But seriously... Carrots"

I sigh. "I don't like that mix, the carrots, and the mayo..."

She laughs. "It's colorful"

"I want my food tasty, not colorful"

She laughs again.

We get out and explore the aisles. I also take a bag of corn chips to snack on, and I find a bottle of sunscreen lotion. We might not strip naked like they do, but the sun hits a lot harder here than on the slopes of West Virginia.

I pay with my credit card. It's not like I have an excess amount of money. I couldn't even collect on my last two jobs, and I have the feeling I never will.

To be honest, I consider going to a motel, but it's not like we have extra money available.

We pull up to the resort, and this time, I am the only one getting out to speak to Katy.

"Welcome back"

"We went to the grocery store and will be staying in my sister's house"

"No problem. But... would it be an issue if my brother, Richard, came to speak to you a little later in the evening?"

"Your brother?"

"We co-own this resort. I spoke to him, and when he gets back from work, he wants to, well, have a frank conversation about the situation"

"He knows where to find us"

"I bet he will", she says, smiling. She knows that I understood the rule. She can't police inside the house, but outside of it, it's mandatory nudity.

I get back to the car, and soon enough, she raises the gate again, and without much delay, we are back to unloading our things.

We do not get interrupted this time, and Sydney quickly gets to work.

I find the plates and even a salad bowl, which surprises me, but which, of course, Sydney had noticed on the first visit.

Perhaps while I was speaking with the retired lieutenant.

I help her by smashing the iceberg lettuce on the counter to break apart the stem, and then I pull it out.

I don't stop there, of course. After I split the leaves apart, only breaking the big one apart, I noticed that Syd had taken out the lettuce spinner, so I washed the leaves and spun them dry. I wouldn't have thought of it.

Meanwhile, Syd is splitting apart the chicken. She found a refrigerated one on sale (for being older), and that suited us just fine.

It didn't take long for the bowl of salad to now hold a complete meal and for us to sit at the table.

We mostly worked in silence. We usually don't talk while cooking. Syd's mother taught her that when a couple is cooking together, each word is a sign of miscommunication.

Despite knowing it is a stupid stereotype, it never prevents Syd from being annoyed to need to ask me for anyhting.

I broke the silence.

"Do you think that Daphne or Ron sat naked on the chairs we are sitting on?"

She thought and replied. "I saw a couple sitting at that picnic table, and they were sitting on towels. So perhaps not?"

I laughed. "They hate clothing but use towels?"

But Syd didn't know more than I did.

The meal was delicious. Syd had a way to make a simple meal feel like a 5-star experience.

"Sorry if it's a little bland; I assumed they would have salt, and I didn't find any"

I smile. "My sister hated salt. It's possible they never salted anything", I reply.

She laughed a little. "No salt, no clothes. That's a bland life"

I laugh too. "It is. But with you, life is never bland"

"Aww. If you were always calm like that, your life would be so much easier"

"I just have to remember I am just a supporting character in every other person's movie", I say.

"Yeah, but please remember that they are the same in yours. Your movie is important too."

I smile.

There is a dishwasher, but there is no dishwasher soap: the container is empty.

I do find some dish soap, so I start the manual cleaning of everything, while Syd searches for dish towels and finds two. Enough for our need.

There is no silence rule for washing dishes, so we talk. We try to imagine what my sister's and her husband's lives could have been like.

"I saw a picture book in the bedroom", Syd said.

"Did you open it?"

"No. I was just surveying the house"

Once we are done, she fetches it, and we sit on the couch.

I also expected to find the late couple nude in every picture, but no!

In fact, they were dressed in most of them.

I was still shocked to see my sister naked and her husband too. There were pictures of my niece and nephew, in diapers or completely nude.

But most pictures were normal, with them wearing clothes. What I think is Elsie's first day at school, a trip to Disney World with the kids, or pictures of Ron working on his bonsai or Daphne staining them.

She seemed happy. That filled my heart. Ron looked... normal. No more torn jeans, no more punk t-shirts.

Had this young man in the pictures asked my sister out, I would have given him popcorn money for the movie instead of the cold shoulder.

Did she see that in him already, or was it my own prejudice showing?

"Where did you find this?" I asked Sydney.

"In the master bedroom closet. It still has their clothes"

"I thought they cleaned up the place"

"I guess they didn't do this part"

So I stood up and went to the master bedroom. Opening it made me cry.

Because right there, I could see the dress I bought her for going out with friends. The hoodie she bought with some babysitting money, which I didn't like but which she said helped her blend in.

I saw the blouse that she wore at a family funeral, bought from Goodwill in almost perfect shape. And plenty of new clothes, so it's not like she only wore nothing; she did shop for new items of clothing I never saw her wear, and never would.

But what I didn't find was Ron's old clothes. Daphne kept her teenage clothing and added to that collection, while Ron got rid of everything that was a tie to his childhood.

That told me everything I needed to know. He was seeing himself as a new man. He didn't want to remember where he came from.

Like us, he was just surviving in West Virginia, but from the pictures I saw of them, I think they found a way to live and to be happy.

Sydney was by my side. Of course she was. We sat on the bed, and she put her head on my shoulder.

"It's only now starting to hit me that she had this whole other life I knew nothing about," I say.

"What did you think she was doing?"

"I don't know. That's the thing. I wasn't thinking about it."

"Fair enough. But now, do you need to?"

"Well, now I'll never know what she was up to"

"That's not true," says Sydney.

"What do you mean?"

"We could focus on getting friendly with Walter, and you might learn more about them. His wife was babysitting the kids; they must know them. I might be wrong, but that seems like a good way to fill in the blanks"

"Like he will ever trust us"

"Hey, give a chance to people. Remember, he is the main character of his movie. He was a cop. He now sees you as possibly criminal or something. But even as an opponent, he seemed open to seeing you as an ally. If you succeed at that transition, he might open up about your sister"

"Maybe"

"And then there is Olivia. She is mourning too. You might know more about your sister from her too"

"I suppose"

"Kyle, in my own experience, most people want to connect with other people that accept them. I mean, at the restaurant, people came to eat but also to tell me their troubles. I was just their waitress, but I welcomed them. If you accept these people, it might let you reconnect with who Daphne and Ron were."

I laugh. "You mean connect with Ron. I never did connect with him"

"You did. You had. He trusted you."

I laugh again. "Where in the hell are you getting that delusion"

"He told me. Back then"

I turned and looked at her, confused.

"I hated him"

"No, you hated the role he was playing."

"So?"

"So, he hated it too."

"You knew that, and you didn't tell me?"

She nodded. "Kyle, when you don't want to know something, I don't try to force it. I had to wait for you to be receptive. I know; I tried."

"But if I had known, perhaps I could have accepted him more"

She shook her head. "No, you needed to protect Daphne. Ron was stuck between two roles. I can't know for sure, but I think that they didn't just run away from you; I think they ran away with who people thought Ron was"

I look at her.

"You knew all of that then?"

She chuckled. "No. I suspected things, but being here, well, it shows me who he could be. I mean, just because he was trying to reinvent himself doesn't mean he would have succeeded. Furthermore, I am not convinced that most people can't effectively change"

"You did"

She laughs. "I did not. I was always that empathetic. I just learned from you how to stop hiding it"

I nodded. It made sense.

"So what do we do now?"

"Well, I think you need to pick your objectives, find your character arc" she says.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in a few days, we will be in front of a judge. You will need to decide: do you want custody of those kids? Do you want to just live nearby and be an uncle with other people raising them? Do you want to go home to West Virginia?"

"I don't want that. That last one."

"Good. So?"

"I think I do want to raise them. And yeah, I guess that Walter was right. I only know tough love. I think I would like to learn to be softer, but I just don't know how. Not only that, but I've been angry for so long "

"You already know how"

"Yeah, with you. But I need to learn to be soft with them too"

She smiles.

"I would like that, and I will be there for you," she replies.

We hugged each other. But then, there was a knock at the door.