A few weeks after the wedding, Everett drove past the old laundromat on the edge of town. He parked out front for a moment, looking up at the small window above it. Naomi had lived up there once, alone, sorting cans by hand to make rent. He never told her he'd gone there. He just sat for a few minutes, then drove home to the family waiting for him.
Paige remains in prison as of this telling. Two years into her sentence. She's written to Everett twice. He's never opened either letter. Some doors, he decided, are better left closed for good.
Caleb and Jonah are older now. Loud and fast and endlessly curious about everything.
At three years old, Caleb asked why Jonah didn't have a "first daddy" story. Some of his friends did, he said. Everett and Naomi looked at each other over the kitchen table, caught off guard. "You both only ever had one daddy," Naomi said carefully. "Just a rough couple of years first." Caleb seemed satisfied with that and went back to his cereal, the question already forgotten. Everett wasn't sure he'd ever forget it, though. He wrote the moment down that night, in a small notebook he kept for exactly that purpose.
