Downstairs, Greg settled into the old rocking chair with Susan and Steve tucked together inside Michael’s blue blanket, and I sat beside him with a mug of coffee cooling between my palms. Susan squeaked once, and Greg looked down at her immediately, the way he always would now, I suspected, for the rest of however long she needed him.
“Daddy’s here,” he murmured.
This time, the words didn’t send a chill up my arms. They settled something instead — some old, worried place in me that had spent thirty-one years quietly hoping he still felt like himself underneath all the roles we’d both worn thin.
I took a sip of coffee. “Susan is still an objectively ridiculous name for a cat.”
Greg rocked once, unbothered. “She’s grown into it.”
I laughed, and the sound of it filled the small room in a way that felt, after everything, like coming home to something I hadn’t realized I’d left.
