Whoever the idiot was who thought flying with a 4-year-old was a good idea should be shot. And yeah, I knew it was me. We got off to a late start because Emma forgot Mr. Monkey and then we had to look for the Snitch as she insisted on calling the stuffed thing Justin bought her because they were best friends and would get lonely without each other. By the time we left the house, we barely had enough time to make our check-in. I knew it was just the excitement of the trip, but I couldn’t remember the last time she had been so difficult. I was trying to carry my carry-on bag, a backpack with stuff for Emma on the flight, and to keep a hold of her. At that moment, I wondered why we had never used one of those harness things on Emma because she was not making it easy. I knew Justin would help, but I had actually snapped at him when he offered. I guess there was a small part of me that was still afraid he’d decide we were more than he bargained for and leave, so I was trying to do it all myself.

About halfway through the terminal, he stopped me by grabbing my arm and leading me to the wall out of the crowd of people headed to their gate. “This is ridiculous,” he said, giving me a look that told me he wasn’t playing around. “You can take the bags or you can take Emma; which do you want?”

I just looked at him for a second, then I looked down at Emma who was still pulling on my hand, trying to get me to come on. I sighed. “I guess take Emma,” I said reaching for his bag.

“Wait. Here, look.” He set his bag on the floor and pulled the handle up. Then he stacked mine on his using some built-in strap on his bag. Then he put Emma’s backpack on top, sliding the straps over the handle and handed it to me. “Now Emma, up you go.”

“Piggy back!” she exclaimed, crawling up Justin like a monkey.

He got her situated, and then he turned and looked at me. “Mark Montgomery, I love you. Whatever it is in your head that has you out of sorts, stop it.” He leaned forward and gave me a quick kiss.

“Me too, me too!” Emma said. He turned kinda sideways and leaned her over so she could reach me and give me a kiss on my cheek.

“Now let’s go catch a plane.”

Thank goodness the flight was less than three hours. Emma had her own seat, but the second the seatbelt sign was off, she was up and in Justin’s lap with her backpack and a stack of books. Once the books were done, she was back and forth between us like a ping-pong ball. We had put her in the seat between us but I convinced her to swap for the seat by the window so I could talk with Justin. I got her all set up with a lap desk, paper, and crayons. She loved to draw, and I hoped it would buy me enough time to make sure he wasn’t too nervous about this weekend. We had been talking for about twenty minutes when Emma pulled on my arm. When I looked over at her, she motioned for me to lean down so she could whisper in my ear.

“How do you spell family?”

I sat back up and smiled at her. Suzie had been working with her on her letters all spring, getting her ready to start preschool in the Fall, and she was always writing something. “F,” I said, and she quickly reached her hand up and covered my mouth.

“Shhh. It’s a secret. That’s why I whispered! When I whisper to you, you have to whisper back,” she said, shooting me a classic Suzie look like I was the one who was four and didn’t know how the world worked. Which I guess I didn’t since I just got shhh-ed by said 4-year-old.

“Okay.” I leaned over and whispered each letter in her ear while she carefully drew them.

She looked around me, checking to make sure Justin couldn’t see what she was doing. Making a point to scold him once, telling him there would be no peeking.

She looked at it for a minute, cocking her head sideways and trying to decide if it was right. She grabbed another crayon and went back to work for a minute and then nodded her head in approval. God, I loved this little girl.

Then she took the picture, scrambling out of her seat and over to Justin’s lap. She handed him her artwork. “This is for you. You can put this on your ‘frigerater. Like Daddy does at our house. So you won’t forget us when you aren’t with us.”

* * *

I sat there for a minute looking at the picture she’d handed me. It was pretty much like the one that had been hanging in Mark’s kitchen. On the top, it said, “My Family” and it had two houses with a man, a woman, and a little girl holding hands. But on the other side of the little girl instead of one man she had put two. She had added me to the picture.

“Oh, princess, I could never forget you. Never,” I said shakily, hugging her tight.

“Never?”

“No, baby, never. You know why? Because it’s a rule. Did you know that?” She shook her head. “Your mommy told me about it. She said that in this family it is rule number one because it is the most important rule. Want to know what it is?” She nodded.

I looked over her head at Mark, and our eyes met, and as I held his gaze, I shared the one rule I knew truly was unbreakable.

“The rule is that family is forever.”

“Forever,” she said firmly. “But you can only keep it at your house for a little while, not forever.”

“Oh, really and why is that?”

“Because you have to bring it with you when you come and live with us. That is my rule. I just made it right now. It can be rule number two.” She sat up straight, like she was about to make an important announcement. “Rule number two—Family lives together.”

“Oh really,” I said, “Well, I tell you what, princess, how about I remind you of that rule in about fourteen years when you decide to move away to college?”

“Oh no. I’m never moving away. I’m going to live with you and Daddy and Mommy and Bampás forever. It’s a rule, remember I just made it.”

“Spoken like a 4-year-old who knows everything,” Mark said laughing.

“Well, you know it isn’t actually a half bad rule,” I said, tossing what I had been thinking out there.

“No,” he agreed. “No, it’s not.”

When we arrived at the airport, my dad came to get us. I’d planned to take a Lyft, but he insisted it would be easier for him to come get us so we wouldn’t have to worry about a car seat. I was nervous to see him after all these years but having Emma around kept us too busy to think about it, and we had been talking or texting pretty much daily, so it didn’t seem like we were strangers.

In the end, we changed our plans about me showing up for the graduation party out of the blue. I told him I thought the party should be about Jake, and I didn’t want to take that away from him. Today was the last day of classes, and Jake would be at school all day. Of course, if it was anything like when I graduated, it would be more about everyone seeing their friends for the last time since grades were already in and graduation was tomorrow. The plan was to be at the house before he got home and surprise him there.

The reunion at the airport was emotional but went great. There were hugs and introductions and when he called me son, it was like I had stepped back in time ten years in a good way. We explained to Emma that he was my dad like Pop was Mark’s dad and that was good enough for her. We headed out to the car, and he was holding her, and she was telling him all about her cat and how she hoped her mom didn’t forget to feed him.