I stood very still at that counter while the floor seemed to tilt under me.

An extra vest.

A heavy-duty adult flotation vest, bought the morning they left, for a brother who had said, the night before, in a video I had now watched, that he was not coming.

Lucas had bought it anyway.

Of course he had.

That was the whole of him in a single purchase — he had not quite given up on getting Zachary onto that water, and even in the small chance that his brother changed his mind and drove out to meet them, Lucas was not going to have him on the lake one vest short.

He had planned for the version of the weekend where Zachary showed up.