Part 6
By late May, Ethan had learned that kindergarten contained more negotiations than any boardroom.
He negotiated for extra time at the art table, against peas at lunch, and over whether Pluto should be included in the class mural. He used his crutches most mornings and his wheelchair on field-trip days or when muscle tightness made walking unnecessarily difficult.
He still fell.
Alexander still reached too quickly sometimes.
When that happened, Ethan held up one hand and said, “Ask.”
Alexander asked.
Their mornings were not transformed into uninterrupted domestic happiness. Pancakes continued to defeat Alexander. Work occasionally kept him past dinner. Once, after promising to attend a classroom presentation, he arrived during the final song.
He apologized, accepted Ethan’s anger, and attended the next event without demanding immediate forgiveness.
Sofia completed her first year near the top of her class. She no longer worked in the Hayes townhouse, though she visited often enough that Mrs. Keene kept her preferred coffee in the pantry.
Her relationship with Ethan changed more easily than either had feared. He stopped treating every goodbye as a threat once he learned that she returned when she said she would. He showed her school projects; she showed him the plastic skeleton used in her anatomy lab.
Alexander did not ask Sofia to dinner until three months after her last paycheck from the Hayes household had cleared. She listened without helping him through the awkward invitation, then selected a small Puerto Rican restaurant in Queens and arrived on the subway.
When he offered to send a car for her trip home, she looked at him across the table.
“You make every invitation sound like a transportation plan.”
“I like plans.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She took the train.
By spring they had been to dinner four times. Ethan knew only that his father and Sofia sometimes ate food without him, which he considered wasteful.
On a bright May morning, Riverside’s kindergarten class prepared for a trip to the planetarium. Ethan had chosen his wheelchair before breakfast.
“It’s a long day,” he explained as Alexander clipped the purple crutches behind the seat. “I need my energy for aliens.”
“A prudent allocation of resources.”
“You’re talking weird again.”
Sofia arrived at the curb carrying her college backpack. She had an early laboratory session nearby and had come to see Ethan off.
He rolled toward her. “Check the lasers.”
She inspected the silver stars. “Fully operational.”
The school bus turned onto the street. Its wheelchair lift unfolded with a mechanical hum.
Alexander’s body responded before his thoughts did. He imagined the chair shifting inside the bus, another child knocking against it, a driver missing a strap. He wanted to climb aboard and inspect every restraint himself.
Ethan looked up at him.
“You’re not coming.”
It was a statement, but a small question lived beneath it.
“No. I’ll be here at three twenty.”
“Not three thirty.”
“Three twenty.”
The driver secured the chair while Ethan explained that his crutches must remain clipped behind him. Nora waved from a window and pressed a drawing of Saturn against the glass.
When the lift reached the bus floor, Ethan leaned sideways to look back.
“Dad!”
Alexander stepped closer.
“You forgot something.”
“What?”
Ethan grinned. “Nothing. I just wanted to see if you were still there.”
The doors folded shut.
Alexander remained beside Sofia as the bus pulled into traffic. He had a nine o’clock call. She had class in forty minutes.
At the corner, the bus turned west. The silver stars on Ethan’s purple crutches flashed once in the morning sun, then disappeared from view.