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“You alright?” He asks, lowering his voice so no one else hears.

I look past him. Simon is in the hallway listening to Theo explain something about his stuffed animals. Simon looks over, and the look on his face is so simple it hurts. Like this is the easiest decision he’s ever made. It settles whatever was churning in my gut.

“Yes,” I say, looking back at Carter with more certainty than I felt a moment ago. “I’m fine. This just happened so fast. I haven’t had time to really think about it.”

“For what it’s worth,” Carter says, bumping my shoulder with his, “I haven’t even once questioned if this is the wrong thing for you to do. Chance either. Simon’s where you belong. We’re all happy you guys worked it out.”

“Don’t get sappy on me,” I mutter.

Carter takes a spoonful of Theo’s abandoned cereal and speaks around a mouthful. “Not too sappy. If Simon screws up again then Dad told me and Chance he’d look the other way if Simon went missing.”

“That’s comforting.”

“You’re welcome.” He tips his head toward the hallway. “Go. He’s watching you like you’re going to run for hills any second.”

We finish in pieces after that. Couch. Bookcase. The bed frame we did not get to last night because we were busy not packing. I keep checking Theo. Cool forehead. No flush. Just that heavy, off quiet that makes my stomach twist every time he doesn’t argue. Simon catches me looking and tips his chin. I know. I see it too. He’s okay.

I want to believe him.

By the time the U-Haul is full, the apartment is just scuffed floors and nail holes and the ghost of a life I built when I thought I was going to do this alone. I stand in the empty living room with my keys in my hand and my son half-asleep on Simon’s shoulder and my brothers arguing about who gets to drive.

Simon looks at me over Theo’s head.

“Ready?”

No. Yes. I don’t know.

Carter’s words are still sitting under my ribs. Simon’s where you belong.

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s go home.”

***

“Well, at least we can be assured he didn’t go without at either house.” I tease, trying to find more room inTheo’s closet for his massive wardrobe.

Two houses’ worth of little shirts. Two houses’ worth of tiny jeans with the knees already blown out. Two sets of rain boots, two dinosaur hoodies that are identical except one is from Simon’s place and one is from mine, and Theo cannot be convinced they are the same. The closet rod is already bowing. I am holding a stack of pajamas that I swear multiplied in the U-Haul.

Eventually we give up trying to fit it all in one room and start ferrying the bigger toys next door. The spare bedroom fills up with a collection of little cars, a bin of race tracks, the castle that lost a turret in the move. Theo is ecstatic. He runs the hallway between the two doors like it’s a parade route, cast banging into the walls, shouting that he has *two rooms*.

“It’s just until we can organize stuff better,” I tell him.

He is not listening.

Simon sets down another box filled with Legos. “I can clear out a space in the basement for him to have a play area.”

I give him a look. “He doesn’t need so much stuff that he needs a whole separate playroom, Si.”

“Well, when we have a few more kids we’re going to probably need a playroom anyway. Might as well start now.”

My heart skips a beat.

A few more kids.

Simon looks up from the Lego box and actually sees my face.

“Hey.” He leaves the box where it is and crosses the room, careful around a minefield of dump trucks. His voice goes quieter. “That wasn’t—I didn’t mean *now*. I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know.”