Noah was quiet for several seconds, studying this man with the grave, unhurried seriousness of a child taking the measure of something enormous.

And then he asked the question that a seven-year-old asks, the question that cut straight through six years of tragedy and fraud and hiding and grief to the only thing that actually mattered to him.

“Do you like dinosaurs too?” And Andrew laughed — a wet, startled, breaking laugh, the first real laugh in longer than he could remember.

“When I was your age,” he said, “I wanted to be a paleontologist.” And that was all it took.

Noah opened his arms.