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very…”
    “I know,” she said. And I knew she didn’t want to hear any more about it. Hell, I don’t even know the last time I talked about it to anyone. It felt good to think that maybe I hadn’t even thought of it for some time. “But I think it’s working. They’re getting along great.”
    “We make a good team though, you and I. Didn’t one of your books promise there’d be bickering and teasing.”
    “Girls are vicious,” Mandy said. “We probably haven’t seen the worst of it yet.”
    I downed that can. I crunched it for emphasis, and started on my second.
     
     
    I thought I was done with hangovers. I’d drank more on so many other occasions, that I did not understand why my head felt like a bag of potatoes being shook out through a pepper shaker.
    Then my tent rattled like a hubcap that spun off.
    “Can we go now?” Devin asked.
    I’d already heard his mother tell him to wait several times. But his eagerness to fish had managed to drown out my wife’s well intentioned warning.
    “Devin, get back here. Eat your breakfast first! When your father is ready, he’ll…”
    “But fish are early risers. So they can get the worm—right, dad?”
    His voice echoed, or maybe he really did repeat his question several times. Might as well have been infinite the way I felt. What’s a hangover like in the Grand Canyon with a high school march band?
    “Just a moment,” I said.
    My back hurt. I didn’t clear out the ground beneath my sleeping bag like Mandy would’ve and slept with a root right in my drunk back. Probably felt great when I laid down. I think I remembered that nice warn drunkenness. Better than passing out in my pickup truck. That’d bring a sore back, neck, knees, and forehead, since I usually bounce my head off the steering wheel at some point.
    I missed my bed.
    I missed my shower.
    All I could do right now is send them a post card promising to be back at the end of the week—unless something went wrong. Maybe it was the headache, but it felt like something bad was going to happen. Like I was just supposed to stay in my tent today.
    I pushed open the tent flaps and bumped right into Devin.  He fell on his butt.
    “Sorry, little buddy,” I said.
    “I’m a tough guy, dad. That didn’t hurt one bit.”
    Kid hadn’t lost a spark. They should find a way to bottle his enthusiasm and put it in coffee.
    “Do you have your fishing rod?”
    Devin displayed it. He had mine in his other hand.
    “Tackle boxes?”
    “I already put them down by the river. I found a great spot. Just like you said.”
    He took me to the same rock I sent him off to last year. There was a small spray where the water splashed against the rocks. It wasn’t a great spot. It was just where I told him to go—when I needed some peace.  It was probably just the hangover, but looking back, I felt awful about it.
    I didn’t hate him.
    He wasn’t annoying so much as…
    …I don’t know.
    What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. One day, he’ll be a parent and maybe he’ll figure it out. But then he’ll also have it figured out that I love him. I don’t know what his sisters put in his head. But he’s got to man up. The world is different for guys. I know women like to claim inequality and complain about needing to be proper. But a man’s got to be tough or the world will eat him alive. Call him queer, pass him up for a promotion, or cheat on him with the neighbor.
    Dev…He can’t be the way he is now.
    He’s a momma’s boy, but in a good way. I know I can’t get mad at him for that.  All he’s got to do is be decent. But he can’t be weak.
    He can’t let them break him.
    How in the world do you tell that to a kid?
    “Alright, let me put your bait on,” Devin said. “Did you want live or one of the pretty ones?”
    Sometimes I swear he said things just to make me shake my head.
    “Start with live, that way the fish will spread the word that there’s good eating,” I said.
    He hooked the worms