“Okay,” I whispered instead, still looking at June. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got you.”
Mrs. Hunter fell silent. The porch light flickered once more.
I carried them inside one by one, and somewhere between the second trip and the third, I stopped being Uncle Noah and became something I didn’t yet have a name for.
I became Uncle Noah, then Dad, by accident.
—
Twenty-two years passed, the way a long workday does: slow while you’re inside it, gone when you look back.
I packed lunches with the wrong bread. I braided their hair so badly that Mrs. Hunter had to fix it on the porch before school.
“You’re going to give those girls complexes, Noah,” my neighbor said once, pulling a brush through Ava’s tangles.
“I’m doing my best.”
“I know you are. That’s the problem!” she teased.
—
I worked double shifts at the hardware store. Then triple shifts whenever one of the kids needed braces, a science fair board, or new shoes because somehow the old pairs fit no one anymore.
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