Our conversations since I'd started my business had been superficial. I said little about work; she casually mentioned once that she'd begun putting out feelers about finding some part-time work. We talked about our families and made small talk about friends and neighbors. Mostly, though, we talked about London, always a safe topic. We both sensed that the slightest offense or misspoken word might lead to an argument.

The Fourth of July fell on a Saturday, and I wanted nothing more than to spend the day decompressing. I wanted to tune out concerns about money or bills or clients who ignored my calls; I wanted to stop the little voice in my head that had begun to wonder whether I should get a second job or start looking for jobs in other cities again. What I wanted was to escape adulthood for a day and then cap the holiday weekend off with a romantic evening with Vivian, because it would make me feel like she still believed in me, even if her faith was getting wobbly.

But holiday or not, Saturday morning was Vivian's Me Time, and soon after waking, she was out the door to yoga class, after which she would go to the gym. I gave London some cereal and the two of us went to the park; in the afternoon, the three of us attended a neighborhood block party. There were games for the kids, and Vivian hung with other mothers while I sipped on a couple of beers with the fathers. I didn't know them well; like me, until recently, they'd tended to work long hours, and my thoughts continually wandered to my looming financial fiasco, even as they spoke.

Later, while the fireworks blossomed in the sky above the BB&T Ballpark, I continued to feel the tension in my neck and shoulders.

On Sunday, I felt no better.

Again, I hoped for a day to unwind, but after breakfast, Vivian told me she had some errands to run and would be gone most of the day. The tone she used both casual and defiant made clear that she would be out of the house for most of the day, and was more than ready for an argument if I wanted one.

I didn't. Instead, with my stomach in knots, I watched her hop in the SUV, wondering not only how I was going to hold myself together, but how I was going to keep London entertained for an entire day. In that moment, however, I remembered a slogan I'd conceived in the first year of my advertising career.

When you're in trouble and need someone in your corner...

I'd written it into a commercial for a personal injury attorney and even though the guy was disciplined by the bar and eventually lost his license to practice, the ad had caused a flood of other local attorneys to advertise with our firm. I was responsible for most of them; the go-to guy when it came to any form of legal advertising and it made Peters a ton of money. A couple of years later, an article appeared in The Charlotte Observer and noted that the Peters Group was considered to be the ambulance chasers of the advertising world, and a few banking and real-estate executives began to balk at the association. Peters reluctantly pulled the plug on those same clients, even though it pained him, and years later, he would sometimes complain that he'd been extorted by those same banks he had no trouble exploiting, at least when it came to the fees he charged them.

Still, I was in trouble and I needed someone in my corner... and I made the spur-of-the-moment decision to visit my parents.

If they're not in your corner, you're in real trouble.

It's hard for me to imagine my mom without an apron. She seemed convinced that aprons were as essential as a bra and panties when it came to women's wear, at least when she was at home. Growing up, she'd be wearing one when Marge and I came down to breakfast; she put one on immediately after walking in the door after work, and she'd continue wearing one long after dinner had been concluded and the kitchen had been cleaned. When I'd ask her why, she'd say that she liked the pockets, or that it kept her warm, or that she might have a cup of decaffeinated coffee later and didn't want to spill it on her clothes.

Personally, I think it was just a quirk, but it made buying her Christmas and birthday gifts easy, and over the years, her collection had grown. She had aprons in every color, every length and style; she had seasonal aprons, aprons with slogans, aprons that Marge and I had made her when we were kids, aprons with the name "Gladys" stenciled onto the fabric, and a couple of them even had lace, though she considered those too racy to wear. I knew for a fact that there were seven boxes of neatly folded aprons in the attic, and two entire cabinets in the kitchen were dedicated to her collection. It had always been something of a mystery to Marge and me how our mom went about selecting her Apron of the Day, or even how she could find the one she wanted amidst all the others.

Little about her apron-wearing habit had changed after she'd stopped working. My mom had worked not because she loved her job but because our family needed the money, and once she stepped away, she joined a gardening club, volunteered at the senior center, and was an active member of the Red Hat Society. Like Vivian and London, it seemed as though she had something planned every day of the week, things that made her happy, and it was my distinct impression that the aprons she'd been selecting over the last few years reflected a more cheerful disposition. Plain aprons had been banished to the bottom of the drawer; at the top were aprons patterned with flowers and birds, and the occasional slogan such as Retired: Young at Heart but Older in Other Places.

When I arrived with London in tow, my mom was wearing a red and blue checkered apron without pockets, I couldn't help but notice and her face lit up at the sight of my daughter. Over the years, she'd begun to resemble less the mother I'd known and more the kind of grandmother that Norman Rockwell might have created for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. She was gray-haired, pink-cheeked, and soft in all the right places, and it went without saying that London was equally thrilled to see her.

Even better, both Liz and Marge were at the house. After a quick hug and kiss from all of them, their attention shifted completely to my daughter, and I pretty much became invisible. Liz scooped her up almost as soon as London burst through the front door and all at once London was talking a mile a minute. Marge and Liz hung on her every word, and as soon as I heard the word cupcakes, I knew that London would be occupied for at least the next couple of hours. London loved to bake, which was odd since it was something that Vivian didn't particularly enjoy, what with all the white flour and sugar.

"How was your Fourth?" I asked my mom. "Did you and Dad see the fireworks?"

"We stayed in," she said. "Crowds and traffic are just too much these days. How about you?"

"The usual. Neighborhood block party, and then we went to the ballpark."

"So did we," Liz said. "You should have called us. We could have made plans to meet."

"I didn't think about it. Sorry."

"Did you like the show, London?" Marge asked.

"They were super pretty. But some of them were really loud."

"Yes, they were."

"Can we go start the cupcakes now?"

"Sure, sweetie."

Strangely, my mom didn't follow the three of them. Instead, she hovered near me, waiting until they were in the kitchen before finally smoothing the front of her apron. It was what she always did when she was nervous.

"You okay, Mom?"

"You need to talk to him. He needs to go to the doctor."

"Why? What's up?"

"I'm worried he might have the cancer."

My mom never said simply "cancer." It was always the cancer. And the idea of the cancer terrified her. It had taken the lives of her parents as well her two older siblings. Since then, the cancer had become a regular topic of conversation with my mom, a bogeyman waiting to strike when it was least expected.

"Why would you think he has cancer?"

"Because the cancer makes it hard to breathe. That's the same thing that happened to my brother. First, the cancer takes your breath, and then it takes the rest of you."

"Your brother smoked two packs of cigarettes a day."

"But your dad doesn't. And the other day, he had trouble catching his breath."

For the first time, I noticed the natural pinkness in her cheeks had faded.

"Why didn't you tell me? What happened?"

"I'm telling you now," she said. She drew a long breath. "On Thursday, after work, he was on the back porch. I was cooking dinner, and even though it was blazing hot outside, your father got it in his head to move the planter with the Japanese maple in it from one end of porch to the other, so it wouldn't get so much sun."

"By himself?" There wasn't a chance I could shift the thing an inch. It must have weighed a few hundred pounds. Maybe more.

"Of course," she answered, as if I was dumb to even ask. "And after he'd moved it, it took him a few minutes to catch his breath. He had to sit down and everything."

"It's no wonder. Anyone would breathe hard after that."

"Not your father."

She had a point, I admitted. "How was he afterward?"

"I just told you."

"How long did it take him to get back to normal?"

"I don't know. A couple of minutes maybe."

"Did he have to lie down on the couch or anything like that?"

"No. He acted like nothing was wrong with him at all. Got himself a beer in fact and put on the ball game."

"Well, if he seemed fine..."

"He needs to go to the doctor."

"You know he doesn't like doctors."

"That's why you need to tell him. He won't listen to me anymore. He's as stubborn as a drain clogged with gizzards and bacon grease, and he hasn't been to the doctor in years."

"He probably won't listen to me either. Did you tell Marge to ask him?"

"She told me that it was your turn."

Thanks, Marge. "I'll talk to him, okay?"

She nodded but by her distracted expression, I knew she was still thinking about the cancer.

"Where's Vivian? Isn't she coming?"

"It's just London and me this afternoon. Viv's running some errands."

"Oh," my mom said. She knew what running errands meant. "Your dad should still be in the garage."

Thankfully, the garage offered shade, lowering the temperature to something barely tolerable for a man like me, who was used to an air-conditioned office. My dad, on the other hand, probably didn't even notice, or if he did, wouldn't complain. The garage was his sanctuary, and as I entered, I marveled at how organized and cluttered it was at exactly the same time. Tools hung along the wall, boxes of wires and assorted gizmos I couldn't name, and a homemade workbench with drawers full of every kind of nail, screw, and bolt in existence. Engine parts, extension cords, garden equipment; it all had a place in my dad's world. I've always believed that my dad would have been most comfortable in the 1950s, or even as a pioneer.

My dad was a large man, with broad shoulders, muscular arms, and a mermaid tattoo on his forearm, a remnant from his stint in the navy. During my childhood, he'd loomed like a giant. Though he was a plumber who'd worked for the same company for almost thirty years, it seemed like he could repair anything. Leaking windows or roofs, lawnmower engines, televisions, heat pumps; it didn't matter to him; he had an innate knowledge of exactly the part he'd need to get whatever was broken working perfectly again. He knew everything there was to know about cars as long as they were built before everything was computerized and spent his weekend afternoons tinkering on the 1974 Ford Mustang he had restored twenty years ago and still drove to work. In addition to the workbench, he'd built numerous things around the house: the back deck, the storage shed, a vanity for my mother, and the cabinets in our kitchen. He wore jeans and work boots no matter what the weather, and had a colorful style of profanity that emphasized verbs, not adjectives. It went without saying that he cared little for pop culture and had never seen a single minute of anything that could be considered reality TV. He expected dinner on the table promptly at six, after which he'd put on a ball game in the family room. On the weekends, he worked in the garden or in the garage in addition to taking care of the lawn. He wasn't a hugger, either. My dad shook hands, even with me, and I was always conscious of the calluses and strength in his grip.

When I found him, he was half under the Mustang, with only his bottom half showing. Talking to my dad in the garage was often like talking to a poorly stored mannequin.

"Hey, Dad."

"Who's there?"

In his midsixties, my dad had begun to lose his hearing.

"It's me, Russ."

"Russ? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd bring London over to say hi. She's inside with Mom and Marge and Liz."

"Cute kid," he said. From my dad, that was about as gushy a compliment as he'd ever offer, even though he adored her. Truth was, he loved nothing better than to have London sit in his lap while he was watching a ball game.

"Mom says you couldn't catch your breath the other day. She thinks you should see a doctor."

"Your mom worries too much."

"When was the last time you saw a doctor?"

"I don't know. A year ago, maybe? He said I was fit as a fiddle."

"Mom says it was longer than that."

"Maybe it was..."

I watched his hand pick through a series of wrenches by his hip and then vanish under the car. It was my cue to ease up, or at the very least change the subject. "What's up with the car?"

"Small oil leak. Just trying to figure out why. I think the filter might be faulty."

"You would know." I, on the other hand, wouldn't have been able to find the oil filter. We were different, my dad and me.

"How's business?" he asked.

"Slow," I admitted.

"I figured it might be. Tough thing, starting your own business."

"Do you have any advice?"

"Nope. I'm still not even sure what it is that you do."

"We've talked about this a hundred times. I come up with advertising campaigns, script commercials, and design print and digital ads."

He finally rolled out from beneath the car, his hands and fingernails grease-stained.

"Are you the one who does those car commercials? The ones where the guy is always yelling and screaming about the latest great deal?"

"No." I'd answered this question before, too.

"I hate those commercials. They're too loud. I use the mute button."

It was one of the reasons I tried to talk dealership owners out of raising their voices most viewers hit the mute button.

"I know. You've told me."

He slowly began to rise. Watching my dad get up was like watching a mountain forced upward by the collision of tectonic plates.

"You said London was here?"

"She's inside."

"Vivian, too, I guess."

"No. She had some things to do today."

He continued to wipe his hands. "She doing women stuff?"

I smiled. For my dad an old-fashioned sexist at heart women stuff described pretty much everything my mom did these days, from cooking and cleaning to clipping coupons and grocery shopping.

"Yes. Women stuff."

He nodded, thinking that made perfect sense, and I cleared my throat. "Did I tell you that Vivian's thinking of going back to work?"