Four little pairs of shoes lined the hallway.
One had dinosaur stickers.
Another pair had neon green laces.
The sight nearly broke me.
“I expect nothing,” I said. “I lost the right to expectations six years ago, even if I didn’t know it.”
Her eyes filled.
“I didn’t know there were four until the first ultrasound.”
I swallowed.
“They were naturally conceived?”
She nodded.
“The doctors couldn’t believe it.”
I almost smiled.
“Apparently Morettis are excessive even at the cellular level.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
For one second, we were young again.
Then footsteps came from behind her.
The bold boy appeared.
Leo.
He looked at me.
“Bathroom guy.”
Elena wiped her eyes.
“Leo, you’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“I heard talking.”
Three more heads appeared behind him.
Four boys.
My sons.
I couldn’t move.
Leo pointed toward me.
“Are you Mom’s friend?”
Elena looked at me.
I let her answer.
She hesitated.
“He was.”
One boy frowned.
“What happened?”
Elena let out a breath.
“Life.”
Leo looked at me.
“Are you sad?”
I had faced funerals without crying.
My father’s.
Friends’.
Men I had grown up with.
But six-year-old Leo Moretti—though he didn’t know that name yet—looked at me with open curiosity and nearly destroyed me with four words.
“Are you our dad?”
Elena froze.
The other boys stared.
Apparently children noticed more than adults believed.
I crouched slowly.
“I think that’s something your mother and I need to talk about.”
Leo crossed his arms.
“That means yes.”
One of his brothers whispered, “You look like us.”
“No,” another corrected. “He looks old.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
Elena covered her mouth.
Then the smallest boy walked forward.
He stopped inches from me.
“My name’s Nico.”
My throat tightened.
“Dominic.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Mom said it before.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Nico reached out and touched my cuff link.
My grandfather’s cuff link.
The same one I had worn to propose to another woman.
“Cool lion.”
“It’s a griffin.”
“Looks like a lion.”
“You’re probably right.”
He nodded seriously.
Then turned around and returned to bed.
Just like that.
My first conversation with my son lasted twelve seconds.
It became the most important twelve seconds of my life.
The following weeks did not become magically easy.
Elena did not fall into my arms.
My sons did not instantly call me Dad.
And I did not suddenly become a good man because I had discovered people worth changing for.
Real life was harder than that.
I began with Tuesdays.
One hour.
Public places.
No bodyguards visible.
The first Tuesday, we went for ice cream.
I learned their names.
Leo was fearless.
Nico watched everything.
