“What?” I ask, trying to get more time to get my thoughts straight.

He sees right through me. He always has. “If you’d known. About Ben. Everything.” It almost sounds like he’s mocking me.

I want to say, Of course. Of course it would have. Had I known, I would have come running, and all the bullshit of the past four years wouldn’t have happened. That’s how much you meant to me, Dom. I would have gotten over my own self and come running, because that’s what friends do. And regardless of what else we were or what I wished I could be, we were friends above all else, and I would have come running just for you. You helped me breathe and I would have helped you see that it would all be okay.

But I can’t say that. I can’t say that because it would be a lie. If I’d known that a kid was involved, that Dominic had a son who was almost as old as the length of time I’d been gone, that would have been the bit that broke it all away. I would have seen it as a betrayal, even more so than a wedding invitation in the mail. It probably would have broken me to pieces, because I would have made it about me. Had I known then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t even be standing in this room. In this house. In this town. Seafare and Dominic would have been nothing but a memory I would remember with faint anger.

Yes, it would have mattered, I want to say.

“I don’t know,” I say instead. “I don’t think so.”

He nods like he got the answer he expected. It doesn’t stop disappointment from coursing across his face. I want to take it back and lie. I want to lie and tell him everything would have mattered.

“What do you want, Ty?”

Now that’s a fucking loaded question. “I—”

Ben tugs on my fingers, and I think of Bear and me when I was just a little guy. I look down at him and smile.

“Ursidae,” he says. “Bear.”

And it is. So very well done. I tell him as much.

“I know Bear,” he says. “You know Bear?”

“He’s my brother,” I tell him.

“He and Otter. Mustelidae.”

“Ursidae and Mustelidae,” I agree.

He looks up at me as if studying me. His lips quirk into a small smile and he sits back down at his desk, picking up another crayon.

“He likes you,” Dominic says.

“I guess.” I don’t know why. I haven’t done anything aside from questioning why he exists at all.

Dom shakes his head. “You don’t understand, Ty. It’s routine. Everything comes down to routine. Autism is about routine. Day in. Day out. You should have messed with that. He should be upset. He should be angry. He shouldn’t be talking.”

I’m confused. “He’s not, though. Upset, that is. And he’s talking just fine.”

“I know he is. More than I’ve heard in a while. He doesn’t do that with most people. Just with me. Sometimes with his mother.”