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Laurel glances down at Lucy, the strain on her face making it obvious she’s afraid of getting this wrong.

She picks up a fork. “Of course. Any particular shape this time?”

“No. They taste good anyway,” Lucy replies, hugging her again, leaving Laurel looking slightly startled as she cuts up the pancakes.

It’s obvious the child didn’t need her help, but she wanted it anyway, for comfort. I understand why Laurel says she feels inadequate when Lucy asks where her mother is and she can’t answer her.

Across the table, Ashby notices it too. His jaw tightens slightly before he reaches for his coffee again.

Laurel looks up from the pancakes to me. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

She assumes a skeptical expression as she finishes neatly cutting up the pancakes. “You all say that the exact same way. It’s deeply suspicious.”

“We spend too much time together,” Briggs says.

“Clearly.” She smiles at Lucy and tentatively hands her the fork. “There you go.”

“Thank you, Aunt Laurel.”

I can see how stunned Laurel is when the child eagerly sets about demolishing the pancakes without complaint. From what Laurel has said, this is not Lucy’s usual behavior around food.

I want to tell her that she must be doing something right. She needs the reassurance as much as Lucy does.

Devon passes by again, this time balancing three plates on one arm.

Lucy breaks off from coloring to watch him go by. “He walks quiet,” she says thoughtfully before resuming her masterpiece.

“You notice that?” I ask, keeping the awe from my voice.

“Mom says quiet people hear more things.”

The table stills.

Laurel’s expression flickers.

There it is again, the little spark of pain, like it stings each time Maggie’s name is mentioned, which is often.

Lucy doesn’t seem to notice, instead concentrating on giving the octopus a mane of orange hair. The adults at the table all suddenly become very interested in their food. Even Laurel picks up her fork and eats some salmon. For reasons I don’t yet understand, that makes me feel ridiculously happy.

I gnaw on a sticky rib and notice Briggs and Ashby both sneaking approving looks at her when she’s not looking.

After dinner—Laurel eats all the salmon and some of the fries, a small victory—she attempts to answer work emails from her laptop while simultaneously helping Lucy to color in a seahorse, checking her phone for Tom updates, and listening to Ashby explain possible border crossing routes from Seattle into Canada.

The result is catastrophic.

“No, sweetheart, seahorses don’t need snorkels, they live in the sea,” she assures Lucy, breaking off from a phone call to someone called Julian. “Sorry, Julian, I’m right here. Yes, the attachment should with the revised spreadsheet. Hold on, Julian…. Lucy, where did the octopus get a knife?”

“It’s for self defense,” the child explains with unchallengeable certainty.

“That seems fair,” Briggs says unhelpfully.

The moment Julian rings off, Laurel’s email notification dings again.

Then her phone rings.

When she goes to answer it, Lucy chose the moment to spill crayons across the booth, almost sending the remains of her milkshake flying as she tries to grab Bun before he falls onto the floor along with the crayons.