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?”
He shook his head hard.
“Are you sure? Because Mommy just bought a whole bunch, and now most of them are gone.”
“I don’t know, Mommy.”
“You can tell me if you were playing with them. I won’t be mad.”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head again. His fingers gripped the dinosaur hard enough to turn his knuckles pale.
