“I thought,” he said finally, “you’d think it was pathetic.”
I stared at him. “Missing the kids?”
He shook his head, slow and almost ashamed. “Missing being needed.”
I moved to sit beside him in the small space left on the rocking chair’s arm. “Greg. Missing that doesn’t mean you want Michael and Emma to be children again.”
He nodded, though his eyes stayed on Susan.
“Do you?” I asked. “Want that?”
He looked almost offended by the question, which told me more than any answer could have. “God, no. Michael once put a live Lego minifigure in the toaster to see if it would ‘survive.’ I do not want those years back.”
That startled a laugh out of me, sharp and real, cutting through the tension like sunlight through fog.
Then his face softened again, and this time there was no defense left in it at all. “I just miss being the person somebody calls for when the dark feels too big.”
