“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. Elijah shoved his free hand into the pocket of his hoodie. Michael had let go of the other by then. “I know.”
Michael looked at him carefully. “Do you?” Elijah shrugged. The shrug hurt more than anger would have.
“I mean it,” Michael said. “What she said was wrong.” Elijah stared down the street. “She probably meant biological family.”
Michael felt heat rise in his chest. “That doesn’t make it better.” “I didn’t say it did.” They walked another half block in silence.
Michael was trying to manage two competing instincts. One wanted to march back inside and demand the apology Lauren should already have given. The other understood that Elijah’s nervous system had been thrown backward three years in a single sentence and did not need another confrontation staged around him. Michael chose movement.
“You want to get out of here for a bit?” he asked. Elijah glanced at him. “What about Emma’s birthday?”
“We’ll figure it out.” “I don’t want her birthday ruined because of me.” Michael stopped walking. “Listen to me,” he said.
“This is not because of you. Her birthday is complicated right now because an adult said something hurtful and then refused to fix it. That adult was not you.” Elijah looked away. Michael softened his voice. “Where do you want to go?”
After a moment, Elijah said, “Can we just drive?” So they did. Michael drove with no music on. Elijah sat in the passenger seat watching neighborhoods slide by through the window.
His reflection hovered faintly in the glass, thirteen years old and older in certain angles. Michael kept both hands on the steering wheel because he needed somewhere to place the anger. Every few blocks he thought of turning around. Every time he imagined Lauren’s face under the birthday banner, he remembered Elijah’s expression and kept going.
They ended up at a diner twenty minutes away, the kind of place with laminated menus, vinyl booths, and breakfast served all day. It was not special to the family, which made it useful. No birthdays had happened there. No adoption celebration.
No memory belonged to the place strongly enough to interfere. Michael ordered coffee he did not want, and Elijah ordered fries even though he insisted he wasn’t hungry. For a few minutes they sat across from each other while servers moved between tables and strangers lived ordinary lives nearby. Michael waited.