Fifteen Years After My Father Changed the Locks, He Seated Me at Table Twenty-Two

“Twelve.”

Clare came around the table and set her thumb over the refusal stamp, pressing hard, as though the ink might lift.

“April,” she said.

“I was in the apartment on Vine Street.

I decided you had forgotten my birthday, and I kept deciding it for a long time after that.”

“I wrote it in the squadron ready room the night before.”

“I know that now.” She did not take her thumb away.