Adam begged him to make the noise, so Grant obliged, making a raspberry with his lips. Adam laughed and laughed. He loved it when Grant put his lips to Adam’s belly, their nightly ritual, but this was the best he could do from afar. Suzanne gave him a sidelong glance, her expression pained.

If Suzanne was the best thing that had ever happened to him—and she was, she totally was—Adam was the best thing he’d ever had a hand in creating. True, Adam felt more like Suzanne’s creation than his own, but he’d decidedly played a significant role. Adam looked like Grant, like a mini, skinny, Grant, but his brain was Suzanne’s. Grant’s sisters had that brilliance too. Grant wasn’t stupid—he’d done well in the classes that had interested him, and got surprisingly high scores on his college and law school exams—but he didn’t have that razor sharpness. And he made mistakes.

Adam loved him though. Grant taught him show tunes and talked to him in cartoon voices. They wrestled like puppies and stirred their ice cream into soup. Adam tended toward serious, like Suzanne—which made making him laugh all the more fun. Soon—as soon as Suzanne gave him the go-ahead—he was going to introduce Adam to the old sitcoms—shows from his childhood and even further back, from the dawn of the television era. It was an education of sorts. Not as fancy as learning to play the piano or learning French, but an education in popular culture, and valuable in its own right. Suzanne thought exposing Adam to screens of any kind was like exposing him to a virus—a harmful, if not fatal, one. Grant went along in the interest of marital peace. Maybe she was right. Who knew? Adam was certainly just about perfect so far. And just-about-perfect Adam adored him. It was a heady, precious feeling to be adored by a child. One day he would no doubt realize that Grant didn’t shimmer the way he and Suzanne did, but that day was a long way off. Maybe ten years. Five or six at least. Grant wiped the spittle off the phone and handed it back to Suzanne.

They turned off the highway and onto a wide road that was thick with traffic in both directions. Nina tuned the radio to a classical station.

“Music to distract us from the fact that D.C. is a commuter’s nightmare . . . ?” Grant murmured.

Nina smiled as though she wanted to sink her fangs into his flesh. “So tell me about your little boy.”

“He just graduated from preschool cum laude,” Grant said.

Nina stifled a laugh. Had she? Was it a laugh or was she just clearing her throat? Suzanne creased her brow at him. They had a non-bragging pact.

He couldn’t abide by it though. How could he? “Gifted,” Grant said.