That night, when Brandon shuffled through the door with sawdust on his jeans, I told him about it while he unlaced his boots.
“The forks are gone. Like, all of them.”
“All of them?”
“Three left. Three, Brandon.”
He rubbed his eyes and let out a tired laugh.
“Cece, he’s five. He probably threw them in the yard. Don’t stress about it.”
“I already looked in the yard.”
“Then order more. It’s forks. It’s not a mystery.”
I wanted to push.
Something in his voice sat a half-step off the note it usually landed on. But he was so tired, and Alex was already climbing onto his lap, wrapping small arms around his neck.
I let it go.
I opened Amazon on my phone and clicked the first stainless steel set I saw. Two-day shipping. Problem solved.
“See?” Brandon said, kissing the top of Alex’s head. “Fixed.”
“Fixed,” I agreed.
Later, I stood at the kitchen sink drying my hands and heard him carry Alex down the hallway. The bedroom door clicked most of the way shut, the way it always did.
I moved closer. I don’t know why. I just did.
“Remember what I told you, buddy,” Brandon murmured through the crack. “That’s our thing. Okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.”w
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Something in me tightened.
I opened my mouth to ask, then closed it.
Whatever their little game was, it was theirs. I didn’t want to be the mom who barged in and broke something small and sweet.
I turned and walked back to the kitchen.
I told myself it was nothing.
I told myself Brandon would have said if it mattered.
I was wrong about both.
The new forks arrived on a Tuesday. There were 48 of them, sealed in plastic, and stamped with a cheerful little brand logo.
I washed them, dried them, and lined them up in the drawer like soldiers.
By Friday, there were seven.
I stood in the kitchen with the drawer half open, counting again, because surely I had miscounted.
I hadn’t.
“Alex,” I called out, keeping my voice light. “Buddy, can you come here for a second?”
He shuffled in, still holding the plastic dinosaur he’d been dragging around all morning.
His eyes flicked to the drawer and then back to me, quick as a blink.
“Sweetheart, do you know where the forks went?”
