I was still thinking about the plants when I fell asleep that night.
About a man quietly watering the things his son had brought into a space that had never
quite been a home and was, slowly, becoming one. About what that meant. About how
the smallest gestures were the ones that told you everything.
I went to sleep early. I slept well.
The plants multiplied and so did the afternoons.
Noah had been living with Adrian for three weeks when he and Ethan established what
they called, without apparent irony, the Tuesday-Thursday arrangement, which meant that
on Tuesdays Noah came to our apartment after school and on Thursdays Ethan went to
the penthouse, and this schedule had been negotiated between them with the precision of
a diplomatic treaty and presented to the relevant adults as
