"Can I tell you something?" She kept her voice low, under the noise.
"If it's about the robe, I've already retired it."
She smiled. "The second three months are easier than the first three months. And the third three months are easier than the second."
She didn't ask if I was okay. She didn't offer advice. She said it like a weather report from a woman who'd already lived through the season, standing at my shoulder with her wine while the table argued about pie.
"How much easier?" I said. I heard the hope in my own voice and didn't bother hiding it.
"Enough."
I nodded. I believed her, and that was enough.
Back at the table, Ray was telling a story about a game from the '90s. He had the setup, but he'd lost the thread, circling back to a detail he'd already given, and the table was starting to drift. Reese reached for her phone. Caroline glanced at the clock above the stove.
"Wait, Dad," Duke said. "Was this the Beacon game? The one where Hartsdale ran the fake punt?"
Ray's face lit up. "The fake punt. That's exactly right. Fourth and eight, their own thirty-two?—"
The table came back. Ray found the best part of the story because Duke had handed it to him, and nobody noticed except me.
I noticed because I did the same thing. Every Sunday at my mother's table, every shift at the hospital, every room I'd everwalked into and made feel effortless for the people inside it. Duke did it with charm. I did it with competence. The machinery was the same. He laughed at Reese's next joke a half beat before it landed, the early laugh that told her the room was with her. He stood up to check the pie before Diane had to ask, pulling it from the oven with a dish towel, setting it on the counter without breaking stride.
He was performing, being the good son. I recognized the performance because I ran the same one, and seeing it clearly for the first time did something in my chest I wasn't expecting. Recognition. The private exhaustion of holding a room up so nobody else has to carry anything.
The meal wound down. Coffee. Pie that was better than it had any right to be. Ray on the porch with the dog. Reese pouring me a glass I declined. Henry asleep against Duke's leg on the couch, Caroline lifting him off with practiced hands.
Diane handed Nova back to me on the porch. Her hands lingered on the carrier handle for a beat, and she looked at me. The look held something she wasn't going to say with words. Nova was welcome here. We were welcome here. The door was open whenever we wanted to walk through it.
"Thank you," I said. I meant it completely.
Duke and I walked down the porch steps to the truck. Nova in the carrier between us. The Sunday light was gone, the sky purple above the tree line, the porch light throwing yellow behind us. I looked back once at the house. The kitchen window was lit. Diane was at the sink, and Ray was beside her with a dish towel, talking about something, his mouth still going. She was laughing. The radio was still on.
The cab was quiet after all that noise.
Duke put the key in the ignition. Headlights on. He didn't put it in gear. He sat with his hands on the wheel, looking at the driveway, and the evening was settling onto him—the performance dropping away now that the audience was inside.
"Thank you," I said. "For taking us to meet your family."
He looked over at me.
"Your mom held her like she'd been doing it for years, Duke. She knew exactly how Nova sleeps. Nobody told her."
"That's my mom."
"And your dad asked me about my job like it mattered. Not like he was checking a box. Like he actually wanted to know."
"He did want to know."
"I'm saying thank you."
I leaned across the cab and kissed him on the cheek. Quick, light, the kind of kiss you give someone when the words aren't enough, and your body fills in the rest.
He went still. Then his hand came up to my face. His thumb traced my cheekbone, and he held me there, close, his eyes on mine.
"Don't thank me for giving my daughter a family, Aud."
The same thing he'd said in the parking lot after the pediatrician. Don't thank me for being her father. The same quiet refusal to let me treat his presence as a gift instead of a fact.
