I could not see her face.

I was not sure I wanted to.

“Leo, honey,” I said, crouching so my eyes were closer to his. “What do you mean, plays?”

“Games,” he answered casually, swinging his legs again. “But Daddy said it’s a secret. So I’m not telling.”

“You just told me.”

His mouth opened, then closed.

His eyes widened with the particular terror of a five-year-old who had suddenly realized he had broken a rule.

“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered.

Ten years.

Ten years of Sunday mornings, burnt pancakes, and Mark rubbing my back when I could not sleep after my mother’s funeral.

Ten years, and now my son was telling me another woman came to our house while I was at work.

The cashier spoke, but I barely heard her.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, your total. Forty-two eighteen.”

I reached for my card, dropped it, picked it up, and tapped it against the reader with a hand that would not stop trembling.