The First Breakfast
Chapter 04 - The First Breakfast
Claire told the twins the truth the next morning.
Not all of it.
Just enough.
Adrian was their biological father.
He had not known they existed.
Noah stared at his cereal.
Eli asked the question Claire expected.
“Is he staying?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Noah looked angry.
“How can somebody be our dad if we never met him?”
Claire had no answer that would fit inside eight-year-old logic.
Adrian joined them later at a diner.
He did not bring expensive gifts.
Claire appreciated that.
He brought two small notebooks.
“I thought maybe you could write down questions,” he told the boys. “You don’t have to ask them today.”
Eli opened his immediately.
Noah did not touch his.
Adrian ordered coffee.
The boys ordered pancakes.
When the food arrived, Eli noticed Adrian drowning his pancakes in maple syrup.
“So does Noah.”
Noah frowned.
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
For the first time, Adrian laughed with them.
It was small.
It changed the room anyway.
Before they left, Noah finally opened the notebook.
He wrote one sentence.
Why didn’t you find us?
Adrian read it.
His face changed.
Then he wrote beneath it:
I didn’t know where to look. But I’m here now.
Noah read the answer without speaking.
May you like
He closed the notebook.
But he took it home.
