“Okay, hang it up, and Noah? It’s Noah, right? Let’s get you started on the window seat. You got the pictures I sent you, right? Can you match that? Did you bring wood?”

Yes, Noah, did you bring wood? God. I was ridiculous.

I hung the painting, chatted with the movers, wandered through the brownstone. What a lucky couple! I’d always been a Manhattanite, Brooklyn being too hip for me, but damn. The building was a block off Prospect Park on a street with fully leafed-out maples. All the windows were open, and the sun shone through the stained glass window on the landing, making it appear that Noah worked in a church.

He did look like an angel. Or maybe Joseph, Jesus’s dad. The carpenter dad, not the God dad. Or with that black, unruly hair, scruffy beard and olive skin, maybe Jesus himself.

“Stop looking at me,” he said without looking at me.

“Need a helper?” I asked.

“Sure. Sit there and don’t touch or do anything.” He cut me a look, and I felt it in my stomach. He had a black elastic on his wrist and, in a practiced movement I remembered well, pulled his hair back into a short ponytail to keep it out of his eyes as he worked. A few curls escaped.

Heathcliff hair. Jon Snow hair. Darcy hair. Damn you, Noah, I thought. You’ve only gotten better. Watching him work, his movements sure and confident, it hit me again that my wild boy was a man. A father, and who could be a better father than Noah?

“How’s your dad?” he asked, picking up on paternal vibes.

“He’s doing well,” I said. “He’s trying to talk, and write. I mean, he held a pen the other day, but he didn’t write anything. Still, he held it the right way. Mom said he said ‘horse’ the other day. And maybe ‘dog.’ He definitely responds to Pepper.”

“Good. He likes Marcus, too.”

“Everyone loves that baby.”

No response. He ran his hand over the walnut panel, which he’d already varnished. Lucky panel. “Pass me the hollow ground planer blade.”

“I heard the words, but they mean nothing to me.”

A flash of a smile. “Maybe you can walk around the block a couple times, hm?”

“Are you saying I’m in the way?”

“Yes. You’re in the way, Sadie.” His eyes met mine. “Take a walk, Special.”

Time stopped. That name. It sliced into my heart like a burning arrow.