The next morning, while the toaster ticked away the seconds, Thomas peeked into the dining room to see what remained of the evening before. He knew the red tablecloth was in the washer, that the dishes had been cleaned and the candles had been put away, but he wondered if there was something left, something invisible, like the scents that dogs found at the base of a tree.

He still felt full. Stepping into the room, he rested his fingers on Giselle’s chair.

“Did Mrs. Moran like Mexican food?” Giselle had asked. Not “does” but “did.”

His father shook his head. “Nothing too spicy for Helen,” he’d said.

Now his father called him back into the kitchen for breakfast.

“Nadine said it was her turn next.” Thomas picked up the piece of toast on his plate, but he did not bite into it. “When will that be?”

“I don’t know, Thomas.” His father reached over and squeezed his arm. “Eat your toast.”

Thomas took a small bite to please his father. “Can we invite Aunt Sadie and Mr. Walters next time? And Martin?”

“This is beginning to sound like a birthday party.”

It was still winter. Thomas’s birthday wasn’t until April.

“Do we have to wait until it’s my birthday?”

“You’re full of questions this morning.” His father smiled as he said this. Thomas knew the smile was for the talking. He wasn’t sure if it was for the questions, too.

For some reason, Thomas thought of the time he first went to Giselle’s house the day she said she needed to assess him.

“Do you like jokes?” he asked his father.

“Not typically.” His father had finished his toast.

“Are you happy?” Thomas asked him.

Mr. Moran put his coffee mug on his toast plate and folded the paper towel square so that he could use the clean side at the next meal. “I don’t know what happy is, Thomas. But your talking to me is the closest I’ve felt to happy in a long time.” He squeezed Thomas’s arm a second time.

“What if we want to have more than six at the table? Aunt Sadie and Mr. Walters makes seven. And Martin makes eight.”

“We do have a leaf, Thomas.” His father patted the seat next to him. “I want to ask you something. I…I’m thinking about organizing a small service. For your mother. To remember her. It’s called a memorial service.”

“Like a church service?” Thomas didn’t understand why they needed a service to remember her when he remembered her every time he looked at her chair in the kitchen.

“Not exactly. It’s something you do when someone has…left. It provides closure.”

Thomas shook his head. “What is closure?”

“It’s like…an end to something. Officer Grant gave me a business card when your mom disappeared. It’s for a place where people go who have a family member who suffers or suffered with depression. Well, I’ve been going there…to the meetings. On Thursdays. While you are at school. And someone in the group suggested it. To get closure. Come here, son. Are you too big to sit on my lap?”

Thomas couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat on his father’s lap. Certainly it wasn’t since he’d grown an inch as measured by his father against the door frame on his last birthday.

His father reached out his arms and Thomas let himself be drawn in. Then Thomas asked the same question he’d asked Mrs. Sharp. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Oh, Thomas,” he said. “It’s true that I place great importance on what can be verified. That’s my job. If your mother had died in a car accident, for example, then we would know unquestionably that she was…” Shifting his weight, Thomas’s father rearranged Thomas’s legs so that they draped over the side of his lap. “That she was gone from us. But I do believe she is and I know she loved us. And she did everything in her power—” He broke off to lean back so that he and Thomas could look each other in the eye. “To stay.”

“She said she would write me.” Thomas bit his lip. “I believed her.”

“I’m sure she meant to write, son. The important thing to remember is that she couldn’t make decisions like a healthy person. She—” His father stopped talking and Thomas thought it might be because he was afraid that his voice would get quivery.

Thomas waited for his father to finish, but there was nothing his father could add.

“Would you like to read your story to me? The one you and Mrs. Sharp were working on?”

“But…you said…”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that story, Thomas. Sometimes I’m wrong. The people in my group thought it was a good idea. In fact, everyone but me—Nadine, your aunt—”

“It’s not done yet. I…I might need your help,” Thomas continued. “As long as you remember that it’s my story.”

“I don’t write stories, Thomas. I am a copy editor.”

“But you change them, don’t you?”

His father nodded. “I do sometimes change them. But just for clarity.”

“You changed the story last night,” Thomas said. “When you invited Mrs. Sharp to stay for dinner.”

Thomas’s father helped his son back to the floor and stood up, signaling that the conversation was over. “I suppose I did,” he said.

“And it wasn’t just for clarity,” Thomas added.

His father turned and went down the basement steps, letting Thomas have the last word.