Tessa laughed and looked at me.
“Can I hold him?”
The question caught me off guard.
Not because she had never held her brother since that day.
Because this time she was asking for something she wanted, not accepting a job somebody had handed her.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m right here.”
I helped Miles into her lap and stayed beside them.
He immediately grabbed a fistful of her hair.
“Ow. Dude.”
She laughed again while I freed her hair from his fingers.
They stayed like that for maybe two minutes before Miles started squirming.
Tessa looked at me.
“Dad, take him.”
I reached out immediately.
No hesitation.
No seventeen-minute promise.
No secret phone buzzing in another room.
She handed her little brother back to me, stretched her arms over her head, and returned to what she had been doing.
And this time, when my daughter decided she had held the baby long enough, an adult was already there to take him.
