Sam found the notebook three months into their new life together, curled up on the study floor one rainy afternoon while Ezra worked in the garden despite the weather and Lucien reviewed foundation paperwork nearby, and approached the discovery with the same careful, watchful seriousness he brought to everything.

“What’s this?” he asked, holding up the current volume, considerably fuller now than it had been even a year earlier.

Lucien set aside his paperwork, considering how much to explain to a child who had, over the past months, shown himself capable of understanding considerably more nuance than most adults gave seven-year-olds credit for. “It’s a notebook Papa and I keep...