“You are living in a sedan with two five-year-old boys,” I said.

“We are well past complicated.”

In the back, Leo stirred and rubbed his eyes and saw me, and his whole small face lit up.

“Grandpa?” And I had to clench my jaw until it ached, physically, to keep from breaking apart in that parking lot, because a child’s delight is the hardest thing in the world to bear when you have just understood what he is delighting from.

Mason woke too, clutching a battered plush dinosaur to his chest.

“They think we’re on a camping adventure,” David murmured, so the boys wouldn’t hear, and it was the saddest sentence I have ever heard a father say.