Lulu thought about it, arranging tiny plastic loaves in a tiny plastic oven. "Quiet," she said finally. Then: "Sometimes I miss when she did my hair."
Andre, in the corner chair, held very still. He had not known she missed anything about Vanessa. He had not known it was allowed.
Dr. Fitch nodded as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. "You can miss the parts that were nice," she said, "and still be glad you're safe. Both of those can be true at the same time."
In late November Ms. Hollis texted him a photograph. The cubby with LULU in glitter letters. Inside, under the spare sweater: one packet of graham crackers. Just one.
Progress, she wrote, with a small yellow heart.
X
Lulu got better faster than Theo did. Andre had not expected that, and later he would think he should have.
Theo was fine. Everybody said so. His grades were good. He made his bed with hospital corners and set the table without being asked and walked his sister to her classroom door every morning and waited outside it, at the edge of the kindergarten hall, until he saw her sit down. He was polite to Dr. Fitch. He answered her questions in full sentences and drew what she asked him to draw and did not cry.
But he was still keeping the notebook.
Andre found it in December, by accident, when he was hunting for a permission slip in Theo's backpack. The math journal was full now. Theo had started a new one, plain blue. Andre opened it and stood in the hallway and read.
DEC 2. Dad home 3:51. L had snack (apple, cheese). Dinner spaghetti. L had 2 helpings. OK.
DEC 3. Dad home 3:48. L had snack. Dinner chicken. OK.
DEC 4. Dad home 4:20. Late. Traffic? L asked where is he. I said soon. Dinner tacos. OK.
Every day. Every snack, every helping, every minute his father walked through the door. Theo had stopped watching Vanessa and started watching everything.
That night, after Lulu was asleep, Andre found Theo where he had half expected to find him: sitting on the floor of the little hallway outside the kids' bedroom, back to the wall, with a library book he wasn't reading.
Andre sat down on the floor beside him. His knees cracked. The hallway was narrow, and their shoulders touched.