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“I am a grown woman, Shiloh Kane. I don’t need to cheat at marshmallows.”

Marshmallows?

“Dottie, tell him,” Noelle says.

“I’m staying out of this,” Dottie calls.

“Coward.” It’s said with a light, teasing tone. Much the way she’s teased me, on occasion, when we’ve spoken on the phone.

I reach the kitchen doorway and see my son.

He’s standing on one of the stools at the island, wearing a green apron covered in snowmen. There’s flour in his hair and chocolate on his cheek.

He’s holding a marshmallow in one fist. His whole face is lit up.

Then he sees me.

Everything stops. His eyes go wide.

“Daddy!”

He launches himself off the stool.

“Shiloh!”

I barely get my arms out before forty pounds of four-year-old hits me at full speed.

I catch him. His arms go around my neck. Hard.

He’s heavier than he was a month ago. I’d swear to it. His sticky hands lock behind my head and his face mashes into my neck. He smells like sugar and flour and the strawberry shampoo Noelle mentioned in a text two weeks ago.

I close my eyes. And just breathe him in.

Twenty-four bedtimes. Twenty-four nights of watching him fall asleep on a screen. All of it collapses into this. The weight of him. The warmth. His heartbeat going fast against my chest like a bird’s.

I hold on longer than he does.

“Hey, buddy. I missed you.” My voice comes out rough.

“You came home!”

“I told you I would.”

“You said dinner.”

“My flight was early.”

He pulls back, gripping my shoulders.

“We’re making cookies.”

“I can see that.”

“And cocoa.”

“It’s three o’clock.”

“Noelle says cocoa doesn’t have a time.”