"We can keep it," Michael said.
The first day at Ashbrook Elementary was a Monday. Ethan wore new jeans (no tape) and the blue hair tie on his wrist for brave, and Lily held his hand all the way to the gate, which she only did for very serious occasions.
Mrs. Delgado met them at the door. "You must be Ethan. Lily has told us all about you. Mostly during math."
"Sorry," Ethan whispered to Lily.
"Don't be. Math is boring." She turned to Mrs. Delgado. "Can I show him around at recess?"
"That's very kind, but Ethan will have his own class to—"
"He's in my class," Lily said firmly. "He's eight. I'm seven. We're basically the same."
Mrs. Delgado looked at Michael, amused. "Third grade is across the hall, Ethan. But Lily can show you the playground."
At recess, Lily took Ethan's hand and marched him to the center of the playground, where a group of kids were playing.
"Everyone," she announced, "this is my brother Ethan. He's new. Be nice or I'll tell Mrs. Delgado."
"Lily!" Ethan hissed, mortified.
"What? It's true." She turned to a boy with a soccer ball. "Tommy, show him the field. He doesn't know the rules yet."
"I know soccer," Ethan said quietly.
"Even better." Lily beamed at Michael across the playground. "See? He's fine."
Tommy Tran passed Ethan the ball, and Ethan trapped it cleanly and passed it back, and Tommy's eyebrows went up.
"Okay," Tommy said. "Okay, he's good."
Lily folded her arms, triumphant. "Told you."
Michael watched his son, no, his son, walk onto the playground with his sister's hand in his, and he thought about the boy at the fountain with a paper bag, watching the leaves fall. That boy was gone. This one stood straighter.
After school, they walked to Claire's new apartment, all four of them, and Mrs. Figueroa was there with soup, because of course she was.
"Let me see," she demanded, pulling Ethan down to inspect him. "Eating? Sleeping?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good." She turned to Michael. "You. You look tired."
"I feel great," Michael said.
"He's lying," Lily said. "He cries at commercials now."
"I do not."
"You cried at the dog food one."
Claire laughed, color in her cheeks, moving around her own kitchen like she'd never left it. Michael watched her and thought about nine years of walk-ups and night shifts, and about this: a small apartment, good light, soup on the stove.
"This," Claire said, catching his eye, "is enough."
"It's more than enough," Michael said.
Mrs. Figueroa ladled soup into four bowls and one extra "for the road," and told Ethan to eat his carrots, and told Lily she was too skinny, and told Michael his tie was crooked, and it felt, Michael thought, like the most normal evening of his entire life.
That night, Ethan called from Claire's to say goodnight, a new ritual.
"How was the room?" Michael asked.
"Blue," Ethan said. "Like Jupiter's storm, but calmer. Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For the shelf. For everything."
"You're welcome, Ethan."
"Goodnight, Dad."
Michael hung up and stood in his kitchen, and Lily came out in her pajamas and said, "Are you going to cry at the phone now?"
"I'm considering it."
"Good," she said, and hugged him, and went to bed.
He looked at his list. He wrote: "Ethan: first day. Nailed it." Then, underneath: "Us: also nailed it."
Chapter 19: The Partnership Vote
The partnership vote was on a Thursday in December, six weeks after the clinic steps.
Michael laid out his suit the night before. Navy, of course. White shirt. The tie Lily had picked for his birthday, the one with the small planets on it that he had never once worn to the office.
"Wear the planet tie," Lily said at breakfast. "For luck."
"It's a partnership vote, not a spelling test."
"Everything's a spelling test if you're brave enough." She poured syrup with great concentration. "Ethan, tell him."
Michael looked at his two kids at the breakfast table, Lily's hair still wild from sleep, Ethan carefully cutting his pancakes into exact squares, and he thought: whatever happens in that room today, this is the part that counts.
Ethan, home for breakfast before school (a new ritual, three mornings a week), nodded. "The planet tie. Definitely."
Michael wore the planet tie.
Hartwell & Marsh occupied six floors downtown, and the partners' meeting room had a table long enough to land a plane on. Michael had sat at that table for eleven years, first as an associate, then as a junior partner, arguing his way up one careful rung at a time.