“He did in his own way,” Dad said. “He’s got some things going on in his own life right now and I think he just needed time to adjust.”

“I know about him and Mrs. Bryant.”

Dad looked over my head to Mom and then back to me before saying, “You know, part of it is that Mr. Bryant has never really known a gay person as a close friend, and part of it was that seeing me and your mom get a divorce while he’s having a hard time with his marriage hit pretty close to home.”

I could understand that, but I still felt sick for Kiera.

“But Sweet Pea,” said Mom, “all of this means your dad will be moving into the apartment above the hardware store.”

I turned to Dad. “You won’t live next door anymore?”

He shook his head. “Is that okay with you?”

I didn’t realize that in the most unexpected way I’d become attached to the fact that I could just walk a few steps to either of my parents’ houses at any given moment. I nodded. “Having the two houses and you both on the same street . . . it felt like a Band-Aid. I want things to be the way they were, but we can’t move on if we’re stuck in the past.”

My parents beamed, like I’d just won first place or landed the leading role in the school play or hit the honor roll.

“It’s a shame we can’t take all the credit for how smart you are,” said Mom.

Dad laughed. “Speak for yourself.”

Mom turned to me. “We wanted to give you the best experience possible by living on the same street and even re-creating your room. But maybe that’s not giving you the best. Maybe giving you the best means us trying to be our best in our own ways.”

Dad nodded. “Life with just Mom and life with just me will never be the same, and it’s our fault for trying to force that.”

“I don’t know what things are going to be like after this, but I think I’m ready as long as it means we’re in it together.”

Both my parents gripped me in a hug, and I didn’t care how tight they were squeezing or that it was too hot outside or that loving their hugs made me feel like a little kid. I just held on to that moment as tightly as they were holding on to me.

Cheese opened the screen door with his forehead and sat on top of my feet, swatting at the occasional firefly as we watched the streetlights come on and the sun dip down behind the houses. The only noise was the occasional laughter or muffled television from a neighboring house.

After a while, Dad went back to his house, and Mom and I went inside. It wasn’t the perfect night or anything like that, but it was the most okay I’d felt in a long time. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that quiet moments mean just as much as the loud ones, because it’s not always about moving. Sometimes it’s about sitting perfectly and quietly still.