Michelle didn’t answer until Henry said Sandi was gone, c’mon, it was him. The door creaked back, a chain strapping the narrow gap steady. In it appeared a sliver of Michelle. “Hen?”

“Yeah.”

Once the door opened, they just stood there, took a moment to measure each other against the molds of their previous shapes, the templates of their younger, former selves. The Michelle before him looked shaved down, as colorless as autumn drizzle. Unkempt in loose shorts, fleece-lined boots, and a hoodie. Her chin was working its way toward words. Maybe a greeting, preferably an apology. Whatever it was, it seemed to be eroding whatever dregs she had left.

The martyr in him hated how easily he forgave her. All it took was reaching into the drapes of her sweater and tugging her close. The joints of their bodies creaked into place like a snaggletooth zipper. Latched tight and warming, he shushed her when she said sorry, and something surged inside him. He was tremendous and terrified all over again. Had to close his eyes. Settle in, calm himself. From the darkness came a loud burst that stunned him back into the living room.

The burst hadn’t been in his head. It was the bathroom door clapping shut. A child had just dashed inside.

“Junior?”

When they unclasped, Henry shrank back down to more familiar proportions. Michelle stretched back the skin of her face with both hands, then started patting at it like a mound of clay she was trying to arrange into a sturdier composition. She bent into the bathroom’s doorknob and told it that daddy was home, and he was really, super excited to see his big boy, like. Didn’t Junior want to come out here and say hello?

Henry couldn’t altogether blame the boy. He was essentially a stranger, little more than an acquaintance to the boy. The obligatory nature of their previous encounters made those visitation hours terse, strained, like submitting to sweaty, distant-uncle hugs at a family reunion. Only he hadn’t received even that—an embrace. Not so much as a touch or hello. To Junior, he was just a birthday card sender, a specimen behind glass, begging into a telephone receiver so that the boy might reach up and press his palm against the pane, too.

He told Michelle to forget it. Let the kid be. It was fine.