Chapter Ten: The Park
After breakfast came the park.
Which involved the full logistical operation of coats and shoes and the triple stroller for the walk over — even though all three kids were insistent they could walk. Elena’s counterposition was that the stroller was for the return trip, when they would be tired and would claim they could walk right up until the moment they couldn’t.
Sebastian gathered from the way she said it that this was a pattern with a long history.
He pushed the stroller.
He did not offer to. He simply moved to it as Elena was getting the kids into their coats. Positioned his hands on the handle.
When Elena came out of the entrance behind him with all three children organized around her, she looked at the stroller and then at him.
Said nothing.
Which he was learning was Elena’s version of acceptance.
The park was three blocks away. Which was a ten-minute journey with three four-year-olds who needed to examine everything.
A pigeon. A crack in the sidewalk. A delivery truck that Liam needed to determine the contents of. A dog on a leash belonging to an elderly man, who stopped entirely so all three children could pet it.
Sebastian stood holding the stroller and watched Elena crouch down beside them to talk to the dog.
Something happened in his chest that he had no category for.
He had made billions of dollars.
He had never once — not once — stood on a sidewalk on a Saturday morning watching three children pet a stranger’s dog.
He could not explain why this felt like more than any of it.
At the park, the kids dispersed immediately in three directions with the synchronized chaos of people who had been here before and knew exactly where they were going.
Liam to the climbing structure.
Chloe to the sandbox.
Noah to the bench near the pond, where he sat and appeared to be observing the ducks with the focused attention he gave everything.
Sebastian started toward the climbing structure.
Elena said quietly from beside him, “Noah.”
He turned. Looked at where Noah was sitting alone by the pond.
“He always does that,” Elena said. “He likes to watch before he joins. But sometimes he likes company while he’s watching. If the company is quiet.”
Sebastian changed direction.
He walked to the bench. Sat beside Noah, leaving a foot of space between them. Looked at the ducks.
They sat for several minutes in complete silence.
It was not uncomfortable. It was the specific, particular silence of two people who are constitutionally suited to quiet.
Sebastian felt it the way you feel something that fits. With a recognition that was almost painful.
“The one on the left is the boss,” Noah said eventually.
Sebastian looked. The duck on the left was indeed moving through the water with an authority that the others seemed to navigate around.
“How can you tell?”
“The other ones move when he gets close. Not because they’re scared. Because they know that’s where he goes.”
Noah paused.
“There’s a difference.”
Sebastian looked at his son.
“Yes,” he said. “There is.”
Noah looked up at him then. Directly. With those eyes that had been assessing him since the first day in the apartment.
“Are you going to keep coming?” he asked.
The directness of it landed clean and hard.
“Yes,” Sebastian said.
“Even when things are busy?”
“Mama’s friends sometimes say they’re going to come and then they’re busy.”
“I’m going to come,” Sebastian said. “Even when things are busy.”
Noah looked at him for another moment.
Then he nodded once — the way Liam nodded when he had reached a verdict — and returned his gaze to the ducks.
After another minute, he slid three inches along the bench toward Sebastian.
Closing the space between them to almost nothing.
He did not say anything. He did not need to.
Sebastian sat very still and did not move and did not speak. He was more present in that moment than he had been in any boardroom of his life.
From across the park, Elena was watching them.
He could feel it.
When he finally looked over, she had already looked away.
