Lily turned to Ethan with the directness of a seven-year-old who had never learned to be tactful and, Michael suspected, never would. "Do you like dinosaurs?"
Ethan blinked. "What?"
"Dinosaurs. Do you like them. It's important."
"Um. Yes?"
"Which one is your favorite?"
"The — the T. rex, I guess."
Lily nodded slowly, as if this answer had confirmed something significant. "Okay. The T. rex is acceptable. What's your second favorite?"
Michael put his hand over his mouth.
"The triceratops?" Ethan said. It came out as a question.
"Good choice. The triceratops is underrated." Lily leaned forward, warming to her subject. "Do you know about the asteroid?"
"The one that killed them?"
"Sixty-six million years ago. It was only ten kilometers wide but it — " She stopped, remembering her mission. "Wait. Are you staying here?"
Ethan glanced at Michael. "I — I think so. For now."
"For now or for always? Because if you're my brother you're going to need to know the rules."
"What rules?"
"The rules of the apartment." Lily counted on her fingers. "One: the blue cup is mine. You can have the green cup or the red cup but not the blue cup. Two: Dad makes pancakes on Saturdays but he burns the first one and we don't talk about it. Three: if you hear me practicing violin you have to say it sounds good even if it doesn't."
"I don't play violin," Ethan said.
"You will," Lily said darkly. "Mom signed me up. It's terrible."
Michael laughed — he couldn't help it — and Lily shot him a look.
"Dad, this is serious. He needs to know about the closet."
"What about the closet?"
"The hall closet sticks. You have to lift and pull. If you just pull, it — " She made a wrenching sound. "Ethan, do you want to see my dinosaur books?"
And that was the whole negotiation. Lily seized Ethan's wrist — not his hand, his wrist — and dragged him toward her room. Michael heard her voice receding down the hall: "This one is a brachiosaurus, it had a heart the size of a car — "
He sat alone on the couch for a moment, the paper bag beside him, and felt something loosen in his chest that had been tight for days.
When he went to check on them, they were on Lily's bedroom floor, surrounded by books. Lily was lecturing from an open book while Ethan listened with total focus.
"Dad," Lily said without looking up, "Ethan can have the bottom bunk."
"There's no bunk bed, bug."
"There should be. Can we get one? For when he sleeps over."
Michael looked at Ethan, who was watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read — hope, maybe, with the shutters half-closed against disappointment.
"He's not just sleeping over, Lil."
Lily finally looked up. She studied Ethan's face for a long moment — the thin jacket draped over her desk chair, the taped shoe tucked under him, the careful way he sat, as if trying to take up less space. Then she shrugged, like the matter was settled.
"Fine. Then he lives here." She turned a page. "Ethan, this is important: the stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut. A walnut, Ethan."
"That's small," Ethan said.
"That's what I'm saying."
Later, after dinner — pancakes, because Lily's rules were negotiable when she was winning — Michael tucked Lily into bed and she grabbed his sleeve.
"Dad? Is Ethan's mom going to be okay?"
He sat on the edge of her bed. He'd told her the simplified version: Ethan's mother was sick and in the hospital, and the doctors were helping her.
"The doctors are doing everything they can," he said. It was the truest thing he had.