Page 80 of What Happens at Nightfall

“Do you want me to see if I can sneak you in this year? Maybe we could go as a family.” Adam grinned at Ben. “You could go where no kid has gone before.”

The Star Trek reference was lost on his Gen Alpha kid.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ben said, which made Adam decide it did matter, a lot. It was the first time he’d expressed interest in doing something together in a while.

“Want to do pumpkins this weekend?” Adam offered.

“Maybe.” In tween-speak, that was basically a yes. “Dad . . .”

“That’s me,” said Adam heartily. “What is it?”

Ben glanced up at him sideways, that Byronic lock of hair falling across his brow. “You know you don’t have to walk me to and from school every day. I’m old enough to go by myself.”

But you’re not, Adam wanted to say. You’re still a four-year-old watching Wild Kratts. A five-year-old falling asleep clutching Cookie Monster. A six-year-old with gaps where teeth had fallen out.

But he wasn’t any of those things, not anymore. How was he eleven?

Ben took Adam’s silence for resistance. “You let Melinda go all the way to Brooklyn Tech by herself.”

“Yes, but Melinda is fifteen.” And Melinda had been born responsible. Ben was the one Adam had been terrified would scoot into traffic or walk off a wall or fall out an open window.

“Most of my friends are independent walkers and some of them live much farther away.”

“We’ll see,” said Adam.

Ben sent him another one of those veiled looks. “What you mean is you don’t trust me.”

Oh, crap. That was an emotional grenade Adam hadn’t seen coming.

Against his better judgment, he said, “Why don’t we try it out. We can do a trial program. We can start . . .” Not tomorrow. He couldn’t cope with tomorrow. “How about next week?”

“Nightfall week?” They were almost at the school. A lot of the boys seemed to have parents or nannies with them, regardless of what Ben said. But maybe those were younger. It was hard to tell. In his head, Ben was still seven at most.

Frozen the year Kate had died.

“It’s a deal, then,” said Adam. Ben was right, they all had to move on. Even if moving on meant letting Ben out into the world, albeit a very small portion of it. They said independence was good for kids, right? “If you stick to the Prospect Park side, you don’t even have to cross that many streets.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Ben! Over here!” A boy in a polo and khakis was waving.

Another took up the call. “Hey! Ben!”

“Later, Dad,” said Ben, and before Adam could embarrass him with displays of affection, he plunged forward, into a group of identically clad boys who formed a phalanx around him as they surged toward the front door of the school.

When the head of the middle school had said Ben was popular, he hadn’t been joking.

Adam guessed every kid developed in their own way. Kate had been reserved except with a very small set. Adam had been fairly popular—in a theater nerd kind of way. He’d been Yale popular, Adam thought wryly. The bar was low. Maybe charisma was one of those things that showed up randomly, a genetic accident like being double-jointed. It was true he hadn’t seen much evidence of it at home, but Ben was clearly a different person with his peers.

It made Adam feel a little lonely. They were growing up, his kids. It was both freeing and terrifying.

Although not as terrifying as someone puking frogs.

The human capacity for compartmentation was fascinating. Or maybe, as Kate had accused him once, it was just the male capacity for compartmentation. He’d managed to push yesterday largely out of his head. Mostly. He’d texted Jess twice last night, just to let her know he was—there? Thinking of her? Not possessed by a demon?

He wondered how her night with Ingrid had gone.

Adam pulled out his phone. True to his word, Cal had sent him an email with multiple attachments. Gottschalk! read the title.