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I press my lips together and nod, because Theo is watching me.

“Levi cut your roses,” Theo says. “He saw on a gardening show they need pruning. He mowed the lawn too. Then Doris came out and asked him to do hers, so he did.”

“Doris?”

Theo nods. “He said we should be more neighborly. And that Doris is a hundred years old and we don’t need her haunting us when she croaks.”

“You don’t have to tell me everything Levi does,” I say gently.

Theo looks worried. “Am I not supposed to?”

“It’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I’m not trying to make you stop being mad at him,” he adds quietly. “He told me not to do that.”

Something in my chest pulls tight.

Fifi toddles over and sneezes on my foot. I pick her up and settle her in my lap.

Theo bends to pat her. “Levi misses her.”

“He said that?”

“Not exactly.” Theo scratches Fifi’s ear, avoiding my eyes. “He said the house is too quiet without a weird little gremlin choking on air in the corner. That means he misses her.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I think it does.”

He nods seriously. “He misses you too. He didn’t say that either. I just know.”

When it’s time to leave, he packs his worksheet carefully and gives Fifi one last pat.

“Can I come again tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

I hug him at the door, holding on a second longer than I should.

When he leaves, I stay there long after the Mustang disappears, listening to the engine fade into the afternoon.

By Friday, Theo has come by every afternoon.

He arrives straight from school with his backpack still on and tells me things I don’t ask about. The counsellor’s office. The worksheet they gave him. The fact Levi tried to make zucchini muffins and added too much zucchini because he was “trying to make them healthy,” which apparently made them wet.

I don’t ask about Levi but Theo tells me anyway. Small things. Careless things. Things he drops between sips of juice and bites of whatever snack I put in front of him, not realizing they lodge beneath my ribs and stay there.

Levi forgot to buy more lunch bags. Levi swore at the oven. Levi made him finish his maths before television.

I tell myself none of it matters.

By the end of the week, I’m getting very good at lying to myself.

But today, Theo’s quieter. He’s got a tight line between his brows that does not belong on a ten-year-old.

I wait as long as I can. When it is almost time for him to go, I set my mug down gently. “Did something happen at school?”

His face crumples. Then he starts crying.

“What is it?” I ask.