Chapter 4: Pancakes

Saturday morning, Nelson Holloway stood at his own stove in a grey T-shirt and burned the first pancake.

I stood in the doorway of his kitchen with my arms crossed and my son's hand in mine.

I had said yes to one visit, with me in the room, and I had made the rules very clear on the phone.

It was a penthouse with a skyline in every window and not a single dish in the sink.

It looked like a place where nobody had ever been hungry at home.

"I have a list," Percy announced.

He had made it in the car, in crayon, on the back of a grocery receipt.

"A list of what?" Nelson asked.

"Rules for dads."

Nelson turned off the burner, wiped his hands on a towel, and gave my son his entire attention.

"I'm ready," he said.

"Rule one," Percy read. "You can't be late to things."

"Understood."

"Rule two. You have to like dogs."

"I haven't met enough dogs to have an opinion."

"That's fixable," Percy said, and wrote something on the receipt. "Rule three. You can't make Mom sad."

The kitchen got very quiet.

I looked at the floor.

Nelson crouched until his eyes were level with my son's.

"I'm going to try very hard with that one," he said. "I can't promise it, because I don't know everything that makes her sad."

"But I'll work on it every day, and you can check."

Percy studied him for a long moment with the suspicion of a tiny auditor.

"Okay," he said. "Are these done?"

Nelson looked at the pan, and then at the heap of blackened pancakes on the counter.

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