That did not mean I was ready to include her in the boys’ lives without more time.

At the museum, Robert arrived wearing a wool cap that made him look less like the imposing man in the family portraits and more like any grandfather taking children on an outing.

He brought an old photograph of himself beside a training aircraft.

“Did you fly that?” Caleb asked.

“No.

I worked with the people who kept it ready.”

Caleb considered this carefully.

“So you’re like the mechanics Mom knows?”