She sighed. “He says Ava wants the rabbit story.”
“There are three rabbit books at home.”
“He says she keeps saying ‘the usual one’ and he has no idea which one that means.”
I smiled, a little sadly. “Green cover. Side pocket of her backpack. Rabbit holding a red balloon.”
She sent it. This time she didn’t set the phone back down. She stared at the screen a long moment, then looked up at me.
“Does Nathan usually need this many answers from you?”
I kept my eyes on the clay. “No.”
“Really?”
“Usually I don’t give him the chance to ask. I just handle everything before he even notices there’s a question.”
Barbara didn’t say anything for a while. When she finally spoke, her voice had changed — quieter, less certain than I’d ever heard it.
“I think I’ve misunderstood something.”
I looked up. “What do you mean?”
She unlocked her phone and turned it toward me. “He sends me pictures. Every Sunday. Has for months.”
“Pictures of what?”
She opened their message thread, and I watched her thumb scroll up through dozens of them.
Nathan flipping pancakes with Ava on his hip.
Nathan pushing Owen’s stroller down a sunny sidewalk.
Nathan reading Ava a bedtime story, her head tucked under his chin.
Nathan at the park with both kids, mid-laugh.
None of them were staged, exactly. There weren’t so many that it looked suspicious. There were just enough — one carefully chosen moment a week — to build an entire picture of a father who was there, all the time, every day.
Barbara looked uncomfortable, like the floor had tilted slightly under her chair. “I thought this was what your weeks actually looked like.”
My stomach dropped. I stared at the pancake photo and remembered that exact morning with perfect clarity. I’d mixed the batter. I’d fed Owen his cereal. I’d dressed Ava, brushed her hair, wiped syrup off the counter twice. Then Nathan had strolled in, picked up the spatula, and said, “Hey Soph — want to flip one?”
Click.
Perfect Sunday dad.
