“Thanks,” he says, and then he says softly. “I won’t tell Mom you said the F word if you let me call you Dad,” he says, and my eyes close, the tears now coming out. “And if it’s okay, do you think Cooper will be okay if I called him Grandpa? And Parker, can I call her Grandma?”

“I’m going to say that he’ll say yes, but you can ask him if you want,” I say, and I hear a boat approaching with Matthew and Dad in it.

“What do we have here?” my father asks when he parks his boat next to ours. “What happened?” He whips off his glasses and looks at both of us.

“Nothing,” I say while he ties his boat to ours. He then jumps into our boat with Matthew behind him.

“Why the tears?” he says to Dylan, and he turns to look at my father.

“Mom and me are going to be Stones,” he says. Matthew looks up to the sky, and if I didn’t know better, I would think he is crying.

“Is that so?” my father says, beaming.

“Yeah, and Justin is going to be my dad,” he says, and I swear it just makes my heart feel fuller, bigger, complete.

“Well, son,” my father says to me, “you’ve got a great family there.”

“So since he’s my dad, that kind of makes you my grandpa,” Dylan says and then looks down. “Is it okay? If you don’t want me to call you that, I won’t.”

My father gets down in front of him and holds his hands in his. “It would be my honor for you to call me your grandpa,” he says, smiling. “We are so proud of you in so many ways. And family doesn’t mean having the same blood,” he says. “Matthew and Allison are mine, and I will fight anyone who says they aren’t. Family means protecting them, and most importantly, it means loving them with everything that you are.” He nods his head at him. “My grandson,” he says, grabbing him by the shoulder and bringing him to his chest.

“Wait a second,” Matthew says from behind. “If you call him Grandpa and that one Dad.” He points at me. “I want to be called uncle number one Matthew.”

“You aren’t calling him that,” I say to Dylan, and the three of us laugh at Matthew. The rest of the crew gets here, and the day slides by with the kids swimming in the lake, then fishing, and when it’s almost sunset, we make our way back home.