“It is thin,” he agreed. “But truth often is. That doesn’t make it weak.”
He left a few minutes later.
The boys kept building until Adrian wandered over and tugged her hand.
“Mom,” he said, “did you win?”
The question, in a child, contained no greed and no appetite for spectacle. It was not about defeating someone. It was about whether the danger was over. Whether the world had tilted back. Whether the person he loved had been hurt less badly than it first seemed.
She knelt and pulled him close. Elias came too, because whatever belonged to one twin emotionally belonged to the other by gravity.
“No, sweetheart,” she said gently.
She glanced once at the city, then back at them.
“We’re just getting started.”
But that answer, true as it was, did not contain the whole thing.