Zoe leaned into June for the first time and let herself be small. Liam took off the knit cap and shook his hair like a bird. He put the cap on my head without asking. It fell over one eye. He laughed—a clean, surprised sound I wanted to keep in a jar.
Luke sat on the tailgate of a pickup, hands wrapped in a towel like he was cradling a fragile thing. When I stepped close, he looked up and squinted with the kind of tired that isn’t sleep’s problem to fix.
“You’re with us,” I said again, because the words had started to feel like a blanket you could put on anyone who needed warming.
He nodded once. “I heard you,” he said, almost puzzled, as if sound traveled differently in cold. “Under there. It made a line to follow.”
The captain’s radio cracked. “Surge in five,” dispatch said. “Repeat, surge in five. Recommend full bridge clear.”
