Malcolm went still beside me. I felt him go still, the way you feel weather change in your bones before the sky does anything about it.
Before either of us could say a word, the kitchen door banged open and Isaiah and Nadia came running out onto the porch the way kids do when they hear a car, no fear in them at all, because they had never once been taught to be afraid of the man standing at the bottom of our steps.
My father looked at Isaiah first. Seven years old, all elbows and energy, my husband’s jaw already starting to set into his face.
Then he looked at Nadia.
Five years old, hazel eyes flecked gold at the center, a gap between her front teeth she was so proud of, standing with one hand on her hip in a pose I’d seen a hundred times in one single photograph tucked in my nightstand drawer.
The color went out of my father’s face like someone had pulled a plug.
The gift bag slipped out of his hand and hit the porch steps with a soft, expensive sound.
“How is this possible?” he screamed.
For a second, nobody moved. Isaiah grabbed Nadia’s hand and pulled her half a step behind him, the way big brothers do without even thinking about it, and I watched my father — my father, who had never in my memory raised his voice above the volume of a boardroom — stand there shaking on my sidewalk like the ground had opened under him.
“Simone.” His voice cracked on my name. “Her eyes. That child’s eyes.”
“Her name is Nadia,” I said, and my own voice came out steadier than I felt. “She’s five.”
