My eyes flood for one second.
I refuse to let them spill. I add cream. I sip. The coffee is exactly the right strength.
"You remembered."
Lex doesn’t turn around. "I remembered."
“Thank you.”
Lex says, over his shoulder, "Three pancakes or four."
"Three."
"Three." He plates three pancakes onto a plate that is not the slightly burnt plate. These pancakes are golden. He’s been practicing while I’ve been sleeping. The first batch was for Nora, who, at almost three, doesn’t yet adjudicate pancake quality with the seriousness of an adult. The second batch is for me.
He sets the plate at the small kitchen table.
Nora looks at her own plate. Looks at mine. Looks back at her plate. Says, with the fierce diplomacy of a child who has noticed that the grown-up has been given the better thing, "Mama, your pancakes are neat."
"They are."
"My pancakes are also good."
"Your pancakes are also good."
"Brontos likes the burned parts."
"Brontos has good taste."
Lex makes a sound at the stove that, I realize after a second, is a laugh. It is small. He’s clamped down on it, but it has escaped. I look at him. He’s his back to us, and his shoulders are shaking once, and then they still, and then he’s back to flipping the next pancake.
Lex Konstantinos has just laughed at our daughter.
I sit down at the table. We eat.
Lex turns off the stove and sits down across from me with his own plate. Nora is between us. She’s decided that the morning's task is to feed Brontos a piece of banana every third bite of pancake, and she narrates this to all of us. To Brontos most of all. She narrates it with the gravity of a woman performing surgery. Lex listens. Eats. Looks at me over Nora's head. Looks back at Nora. Looks at me.
"Brontos is being good," Nora informs the table.
"Is he?” Lex says.
"He’s being patient about the banana."
"That is hard for elephants."
"Yes." Nora considers this. Considers Lex. Says, "Do you know elephants?”
"I have not met an elephant in person."
"Brontos says you can meet him."
"I would be honored."
She holds Brontos out across the table. Lex sets down his fork. Takes Brontos with the seriousness of a man being handed a thing of weight. Holds him properly. Hands him back. Nora nods, satisfied.
"He likes you," she pronounces.
"I am glad."
