I do a double take at the base of the stairs. Ezra speaks Vietnamese? He leans against the counter, continuing in words I don’t understand, crossing one arm across his chest while he’s on the phone. There’s a familiarity, affection in the exchange with Aiko’s mother. Noah’s grandmother. They’ve known each other ten years, so it makes sense.

Hearing him actually speak Vietnamese with such ease underlines how tangled his life is with Aiko’s. Even if they aren’t romantically involved anymore, they’re inextricably linked through Noah and so many other things I can’t even begin to anticipate.

Upstairs, I go to the laundry room where Ezra hung my dress. It’s slotted on a metal bar between a tiny red robe with bright flowers and a blouse I couldn’t fit one boob into.

“Wow, she’s petite,” I mutter, tossing Ezra’s boxers and T-shirt into the hamper. I slip the dress over my head, slide my feet into my mud-splashed, misshapen Jimmy Choos and walk back to Ezra’s bedroom. Actually, it’s the guest bedroom where he told me he’s been sleeping. I venture down the hall to a door that opens to the master.

Their bedroom.

It was dark and we were mad with lust last night when we came upstairs, but I consider the room in the glare of daylight. A pair of pink silk bedroom slippers peek from beneath the edge of the bed. Photos of all sizes fit together like a jigsaw puzzle on one entire wall. Different seasons of life chronicling their little family’s journey together. There’s pictures of them—at the Eiffel Tower, Disney World, the Grand Canyon, dressed up for Halloween.

In the hospital, the day Noah was born.

There’s such joy on their faces. Ezra and Aiko both look young and proud and overwhelmed. She’s holding Noah and Ezra has an arm around her. He’s beaming.

“You okay?” Ezra asks from the doorway.

I jump guiltily and step away from the wall.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be nosy. The door was open and I was...”

Ezra lifts both brows and smiles a bit. “Curious?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I look back to the wall, running a finger over a photo of the three of them at the Space Needle in Seattle. “Noah’s been all over, huh?”

“He loves to travel.” Ezra walks up beside me, studying the photos. “Next year, he wants to go to Israel. Shocking.”

“I love how interested he is in his Jewish heritage.”