Helper prototype sat in the center of the room.
He had built it with Daniel, my father, and Paul over video calls and two weekend visits. It was clunky, bright blue, and slightly lopsided, with wheels from an old toy truck and a little mechanical arm that could lift small objects.
On the side, Leo had painted two words:
NOAH ONE
When my father saw it, he turned away for a moment.
Then he crouched beside Leo.
“Your dad would be proud.”
Leo looked up.
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
Daniel stood beside my mother near the coffee table. They were not perfectly comfortable yet. No one expected them to be. But she had brought him a small framed copy of his baby footprint from the only record she had been given at St. Agnes.
He had brought her a photograph of himself at age ten.
“I thought you
