On the drive home, he stared out the window.
“Are you mad?”
“I’m disappointed,” I said.
“I wasn’t trying to cause trouble.”
“I know.”
“Lily really wanted to sew.”
“And she deserved someone who listened.”
He turned toward me.
“But?”
“But helping someone doesn’t mean hiding important information from the parent responsible for them.”
“I thought her dad would say no.”
“Maybe. You could’ve asked Ms. Bennett to help you talk to him.”
Ethan considered that.
“Yeah.”
We drove quietly for another minute.
Then he said, “I just wanted Lily to have something that was hers.”
I glanced at him.
“What do you mean?”
“Everybody asks how she’s feeling. Nobody asks what she wants to make.”
I nodded.
“That was thoughtful, sweetheart. The secrecy wasn’t.”
“I know, Mom.”
He leaned against the window.
Then, almost too quietly to hear, he said, “I wish Dad had taught me more stuff before he died.”
I flexed my fingers against the wheel.
“What kind of stuff?”
He shrugged.
“Just stuff.”
I wanted to ask more, but he looked tired.
“We can talk about Dad whenever you want.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t say anything else.
That evening, I heard cupboards opening.
Ethan stood in the kitchen with flour on his sweatshirt.
“What are you making?”
“Pancakes.”
“For dinner?”
“Why not?”
I smiled.
“Fair argument.”
He pulled a battered spatula from the drawer.
I recognized its chipped wooden handle immediately.
My husband had used it every Sunday morning.
He always burned the first pancake, then claimed he was testing the pan.
Ethan poured batter into the skillet.
The pancake came out lopsided.
He frowned.
“Too thick.”
I watched him try again.
Suddenly, I remembered something.
Ethan had been making pancakes almost every Sunday for months.
I’d assumed he enjoyed cooking.
But he always used that spatula.
And always made them the way his father had.
“Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
“Is this why you started making pancakes?”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“Because Dad used to make them?”
He stared at the skillet.
“Kind of.”
“Do you remember how he did it?”
“Some of it.”
He turned the pancake too early.
Batter spread across the pan.
Ethan sighed.
“I keep trying to get them the way Dad did.”
I’d worried Ethan was forgetting his father.
But every Sunday, he’d been reaching for the same old spatula.
“Want me to show you something?” I asked.
Ethan looked up.
“What?”
“Your dad had a trick for flipping them.”
“He did?”
“Well, he called it a trick. Mostly he made a mess.”
Ethan smiled.
I reached for the old spatula.
He handed it over.
Halfway through dinner, his phone buzzed.
He read the message and grinned.
“Lily wants me to help her make something else.”
“What?”
“She won’t tell me.”
He turned the phone toward me.
Lily had sent a photograph of a piece of blue fabric and a single crooked pocket.
Underneath, she’d written:
Don’t tell your mom what this is for yet.
Ethan looked at me.
“Am I allowed to keep this secret?”
I handed him the spatula.
“Depends. Is anybody’s parent going to get called to school?”
He laughed.
“Probably not.”
“Then finish your pancakes.”
But I couldn’t stop wondering what Lily was making.
Two weeks later, Jacob called me.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said.
“For what?”
“The way I handled that meeting. I was frightened, but Ethan didn’t deserve to be treated like a criminal.”
“He still shouldn’t have helped Lily keep secrets.”
“I know.” Jacob hesitated. “She’s staying with stage crew. We’ve worked out a schedule with her care team.”
I smiled.
“She must be thrilled.”
“She is. She’s also informed me that I know absolutely nothing about sewing.”
I laughed.
“Neither do I.”
Opening night arrived three weeks later.
The school auditorium was crowded with parents holding programs and searching for empty seats.
Jacob sat beside me.
Ethan had volunteered to help backstage.
When the curtain rose, I spotted the blue vest Lily had made.
Its crooked pocket was still there.
Afterward, we found the children putting costumes away.
Lily wasn’t wearing her wig.
She’d taken it off because the backstage area was warm.
Ethan barely noticed.
He was busy untangling a costume from a hanger.
Jacob approached Lily.
“I saw your vest.”
She grinned.
“The pocket’s still crooked.”
“I noticed.”
“Don’t say it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
She laughed.
Then Jacob looked at Ethan.
“Thank you for helping her find something she enjoys.”
Ethan shrugged.
“She’s better at it than me.”
“He’s terrible,” Lily confirmed.
I watched Jacob smile at his daughter.
It was the first time I’d seen him look relaxed around her.
The following Sunday, Jacob and Lily came over for breakfast.
Ethan was already making pancakes.
Lily arrived carrying a paper bag.
“I finished it.”
She pulled out a blue apron.
Across the front, she’d sewn Ethan’s name.
One pocket sat slightly higher than the other.
Ethan held it up.
“Is this what you were hiding?”
“Yep.”
He slipped it over his head.
“How do I look?”
“Like someone who needs cooking lessons.”
“Rude.”
Jacob examined the stitching.
“You made that pocket crooked again.”
“It’s my signature, Dad!” Lily said.
I laughed.
Ethan turned toward the stove.
He picked up his father’s old spatula.
“Mom, watch this.”
He slid it beneath a pancake and flipped.
The pancake folded in half.
Lily burst out laughing.
“That one’s yours.”
Ethan scraped it onto her plate.
“You’re welcome.”
I reached for the spatula.
“Want some help?”
He shook his head.
“I’ve got it.”
I stepped back.
For a moment, I remembered his father standing in that same kitchen, insisting the first pancake was supposed to look like that.
Ethan poured another circle of batter.
This time, he waited.
Then he flipped it perfectly.
“See, Mom?”
“I see.”
Lily pointed at the apron.
“Don’t get batter on my pocket.”
Ethan looked down.
“That’s literally what pockets are for.”
“No, they’re for snacks.”
Jacob laughed.
And while the children argued over whether pancakes counted as pocket snacks, I set four plates on the table.
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