Owen threw his arms around his neck. Then, being eight, he was off, running back up the porch steps to get his backpack and his tablet and the stuffed dragon he still slept with and pretended he didn't. He was shouting something to his mother inside about going to Dad's.
Claire came to the door. Her hair was shorter now, cut to her shoulders in the spring. It was still the same honey color, darker in the shade of the porch roof. She had a chemistry textbook under one arm with a highlighter clipped to the cover. She looked tired, and older, and steadier than he had ever seen her. She leaned in the doorway with Owen's jacket over her arm and looked down the walk at him, and he looked back. Neither of them said anything. They didn't need to anymore. She lifted a hand. He lifted his. It wasn't forgiveness, exactly, and it wasn't love, exactly, though there was some of both in it. It was more like two soldiers who had held a position together under fire, and lost it, and lived, recognizing each other across a field.
Owen came down the steps with his arms full, the dragon under his chin, and Daniel took the backpack from him and slung it over his own shoulder like a duffel. They walked together toward the truck. Behind them the porch light came on, the way it did every evening at this hour on its timer, the timer Daniel had installed himself seven years ago and that nobody had ever changed. The yellow light spilled down the steps, over the pale step that had weathered gray now to match the others, and out across the walk.