can teach you,” she said.
Nathan looked down at her. “You can?”
She nodded seriously. “But you have to listen.”
“I can listen.”
Owen, from the floor, pushed his wooden truck under a chair. “He also has to learn pancakes.”
“I make pancakes,” Nathan said.
“With blueberries on top?” Owen asked.
Nathan hesitated.
Owen sighed. “We have a lot of work.”
The house visits became small chapters of discovery.
Lily found a box of Evan’s old things in Nathan’s closet—baseball cards, school photos, a science fair ribbon, a postcard from a camping trip. She held each object like a clue.
“Daddy had glasses?” she asked, staring at a photo of twelve-year-old Evan smiling awkwardly with oversized frames.
Nathan smiled. “For one year. He hated them.”
“Why?”
“Said they made him look like a worried owl.”
Lily giggled. “He did look like a worried owl.”
Owen found a dent in the
