Chapter 24

It’s his favorite movie, and I’m not surprised he turned it on. The DVD stays in the player. At seven, he can use the remote better than I can sometimes. I watch him a moment, savoring the warmth of his little body against mine, my heart swelling with something more than mere love—something primal, something paternal, something I never knew existed until he came into the world.

But when his thumb toys with the volume button again, the moment dissipates. “Not so loud,” I caution.

The moment the words are free, I cringe. I sound like my father. When did that happen? When did I grow so old?

I’m not my father,I remind myself. For starters, my father had his hands full with two small children; I only have the one. Also, my father would have never gone out on a date—I don’t remember him ever taking my mother out after we were born, just the two of them, not to dinner or the movies or a show.

And there’s no way my father would have evergone out on a date with another man. Ever