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“The ones beside the road yesterday.”

“The plastic flock?”

“Yes.”

I park and turn off the engine. Locke is still carefully entering letters.

“You laughed at them,” he says.

“I did.”

“I liked them.”

“You liked the flamingos?”

“I liked that they were ridiculous.”

That answer is so completely his. He isn’t choosing the useful thing or the beautiful thing because somebody told him he should. He likes the flamingos because they’re ridiculous. “That’s an excellent reason to like something.”

The images load.

Locke immediately starts scrolling.

Real flamingos this time. Birds standing in shallow water, wings spread, heads curved down toward their bodies. He enlarges one picture, then another.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to see how the legs connect.”

I look from the phone to him. “Why?”

“I think I want to make one.”

“A wicker flamingo.”

“Yes.”

“Please tell me you’re thinking life-size.”

He studies the picture again. “I was.”

I unfasten my seat belt while he moves to another image, zooming in on the wing.

“The bear is nearly finished,” he says. “I want to make something else.”

Not a question. Not a request for me to choose his next project. He already has one.

He needed one word from me, and now he has what he needs to go looking for the rest himself.

Locke opens his door. “I’m going to the workshop.”

“Okay.”

He gets out, still looking at the phone, then bends slightly to look back into the car.

“Do you think pink willow exists?”

“Absolutely not.”