“Then he should come.”
He studied me.
“You won’t be mad?”
“No.”
“He’s still not my dad-dad.”
“You don’t have to decide what to call him.”
Lucas went back to his pancakes.
I reached across the table and straightened his napkin out of habit.
Then I looked at the syrup bottle.
The crumbs.
The plate sitting crooked beside his elbow.
Normally, I would have fixed all of it.
That morning, I left everything exactly where it was.
Because for ten years, I had believed protecting Lucas meant controlling every uncertain
