The sullen teen is gone, as if he never existed. This smiling, laughing boy is allourLucas, and it’s damned good to see him back in residence.
By Friday, all three of us are feeling little nervous when we kiss good-bye that morning and go our separate ways to work. Zoey and I both have made arrangements to leave work early and be home when Nolan arrives home with Katie.
We’ve asked Lucas to be home, too, because we want a family dinner tonight.
Our first full family dinner with Katie.
Nolan sends me and Zoey a text on our group thread later that afternoon.
On our way.
I’m almost home, because I got delayed at work despite trying to get out of there early. Zoey’s already home and waiting for them.
I beat Nolan there by fifteen minutes. When Katie happily runs through our front door, she’s squealing with delight to see us there and waiting for us. I scoop her up for a hug and kiss before handing her off to Zoey, who takes her into her room.
Nolan’s wearing a nervous smile when he follows Katie inside a few moments later. Zoey’s already taken Katie to her new room and showing her around.
“Deep breaths, Daddy,” I whisper to him, clapping him on the shoulder.
He nods and heads down the hall to dump his stuff, remembering at the last moment to detour into “his” room to drop his things on his bed, and not in our bedroom.
Hard habit to break.
I stand in the doorway, watching them. As much as I love seeing Katie happy, I’m even happier to see my beautiful wife’s brilliant smile.
It’s been…a while. A long while. Over two years, definitely.
“What do you think?” I ask Katie.
“I love it, Uncle Arlo!” She runs over to hug me again. “Daddy said we’re gonna get a pool!”
“Yep, we sure will.”
Lucas emerges from his room and joins me in the doorway, and Katie squeals again as she runs over to hug him. “Lucas!”
“Hey, squirt,” he teases. “So I hear someone’s going to need some swimming lessons soon, huh?”
She jumps up and down. “Yay, swimming! I can’t wait to tell Mommy!”
I hope I don’t wince. “How about we take care of getting you changed into play clothes first,” I suggest. “And do you have homework?” Hell, she’s in first grade, but the charter school she attends is heavy on STEAM curriculum, and she almost always has at least one assignment to complete every night.
“Oh, yeah!” She opens her backpack and pulls out a word puzzle sheet that shouldn’t take her long to complete. Nolan reads with her every day, and even last year in kindergarten when they tested her they found she was reading at a second-grade level.
Whew. That distraction helped dodge the inevitable for a little while.
“We’ll let you get changed,” I tell her as I nudge Lucas and motion for him to head out first.
“Okay!”
I pull the door closed behind us. “Smooth move,” he softly teases.
* * * *
The new world order remains a secret until Saturday afternoon, when Katie asks to call Jerilyn while we’re all sitting out in the back yard in the shade. Lucas and Caine are there, too. I’d picked up one of those plastic kiddie pools for Katie, and we set up a sprinkler for her to play with, and we’ll be grilling burgers shortly.
Nolan has a personal policy that I agree with in theory but wish he was a little less noble over enforcing—if Katie asks to call her mom, he lets her. Unless it’s a situation like he’s driving and can’t do it, at that time.
It’s also in their divorce decree for that to happen, although it seems like Katie spontaneously calls Nolan less frequently than she calls Jerilyn.
