Clara was burning the first pancake and pretending she meant to.
Adrian poured syrup into a tiny pitcher and slid it toward Noah.
Noah looked at him seriously. “Too much?”
Adrian smiled. Not the controlled smile from the canal. A real one. The one I remembered.
“Always too much,” he said.
Noah grinned and climbed into the chair between us.
I watched them together, father and son, not perfect, not magically healed, but present. That was the part no money could buy and no family name could fake.
Later, after breakfast, Noah ran into the garden with Clara to launch paper cranes into the wind. Adrian stood beside me at the window.
“I missed everything,” he said quietly.
I looked at Noah laughing in the sun, his small hands lifted as a blue paper bird spun upward.
“No,” I said. “You missed the beginning.”
Adrian turned to me.
I took his hand.
“But he’s still flying.”
