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“Good.” He nods, satisfied, and falls into step beside me.

The sanctuary is fuller than last week, warm and buzzing, and somehow I end up exactly where I never planned to be—third row, Dottie on one side, Bo on the other, Luke next to him.

I’m not alone.

The lights dim. The worship team walks out. The first chord rolls through the room.

And I should be paying attention to the band.

I’m not.

Because Bo leans against his dad’s arm the second the music starts, and Luke’s hand comes to rest on the back of his son’s neck without either of them thinking about it, and I can’t stop looking at the two of them.

Father and son.

Not brother and brother.

Father.

I don’t reach for the usual tools this time. The naming, the narrowing, the making it manageable. I just watch a man cradle the back of his kid’s neck like his hand has done it ten thousand times and will do it ten thousand more, and something I’ve kept locked up for years shifts against the lock.

I decided, a long time ago, that children weren’t for me. I wrote it off so cleanly it barely left a mark, and I never once let myself notice that writing something off and never wanting it are not the same thing.

Bo’s thumb hooks into his dad’s sleeve. Luke doesn’t even look down.

To be held onto like that. To have someone lean into me like I’m something they never have to question.

And then a wrong number turned into coffee, and coffee into a man I can’t stop thinking about, and it turns out he comes with a ten-year-old.

I came here this morning terrified of walking in alone.

It did not once occur to me to be terrified of the opposite.

Beside me, Bo tips his head back and whisper-asks his dad how much longer until the part with the donuts.

Luke whispers back, “After.”

And I sit there in the third row, in the middle of a song I’m finally starting to learn, and feel the drawer I nailed shut years ago slide open just far enough to let the light in.

I don’t close it.

I’m not sure I could if I tried.

Chapter 8

Luke

I’ve sat through a lot of sermons in my life. Enough that I could probably preach a passable one myself, given a running start and a strong cup of coffee.

I couldn’t tell you a single word of this one.

Not because Pastor Jack didn’t land the plane. He always does.

But mostly I sat in the third row and thought about the woman two seats down.

Olivia. At church. In the same row as me, holding a Bible she clearly hadn’t opened in a while. Dottie had her by the arm before she could think better of it, and by then the seat had already been decided for her.

I tried to focus on the stage. I really did. But every time the room stood, I was aware of her standing near me. I clocked the exact distance between her shoulder and mine. I’m thirty-two years old and I spent an entire worship service keeping track of a woman’s elbow.