The stakes had been shown to us, in full, and they had burned all the small stuff away.

What was left was the only thing that had ever mattered, and now we were both looking straight at it, together, for the first time since before the divorce.

I carried the lemonade out into the sun.

Maya looked up from her painting and gave me a smile so bright and so whole that it nearly took my legs out from under me, and she reached out and took my hand in one of hers and her mother’s hand in the other and held on to us both.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said.

Elena looked at me over our daughter’s head, her eyes wet, and nodded — a small nod that carried more than any words we had.