“Another one with a retirement-home name?” she asked, already reaching for the paperwork.
I turned to look at my husband. He sighed. “There was also a Charlie. Once.”
Somehow that single sentence told me his six months of secret volunteering had held even more small, hidden kindnesses than I’d yet uncovered.
On the drive home, windows cracked to the first grey edge of dawn, Greg finally texted Michael and Emma a photo of the two kittens asleep in a shoebox. Michael called back within thirty seconds, his voice thick with sleep and disbelief.
“Dad. Why are there two kittens wrapped in my baby blanket?”
“You’re thirty, Michael.”
“It’s still mine.”
Emma joined the call moments later, and for several minutes the four of us — two parents in a car at dawn, two grown children half a world and three states apart — did nothing but tease Greg mercilessly about the names Susan and Steve. Then, almost without transition, Michael’s voice dropped, quieter and more careful.
