Deshawn went to set up his presentation display with the particular intensity of someone who had been preparing for this specific moment for 3 weeks. And Marcus stood in the gymnasium doorway watching him arrange his poster boards and felt the specific sensation that parents feel when their child is about to do something in public that matters to the child. A mixture of pride and protectiveness and the particular vulnerability of caring enormously about something you can't control the outcome of. Clare arrived at 9:52. He saw her before she saw him walking through the main entrance, looking around wearing a dark jacket over a simple shirt, her hair down.
She looked different from the restaurant. Less composed in a surface way, more composed in a deeper way. The performance layer was gone. She was just herself, and herself was. Marcus noticed this with a directness.
He'd stopped arguing with someone he was genuinely glad to see. She spotted him and something in her face shifted. A small relief like she'd been a little worried and now she wasn't. She crossed the gymnasium toward him. "Hey," she said.
"Hey," he said back. "Not elaborate. Not necessary to be elaborate. " "Where is he? " she said. Marcus nodded toward the display tables. Deshawn was standing behind his poster board with his hands clasped behind his back in a posture that Marcus recognized as the one Desawn adopted when he was trying to look authoritative.
Clare looked at him for a moment. "Oh, he's serious," she said softly. "Always," Marcus said. "He looks like you. Everyone says that.
I mean, the way he's standing," she said. The she gestured the stillness like he's not going to be moved. Marcus hadn't noticed that. He looked at his son and saw it now and felt something moved through his chest that he didn't have a precise word for. "Come on," he said.
They walked over. Deshawn saw them coming when they were about 6 ft away. His eyes went to Clare with the frank assessment that children bring to new people. Not rude, not shy, just direct. Measuring.
He looked at her the way Marcus looked at an unfamiliar engine, listening for the note beneath the surface. "Dawn," Marcus said. "This is Clare. " "Hi, Deshawn. " Clare said, "No baby voice, no exaggerated warmth, just direct and genuine. " "Your dad told me you're the person to talk to about terasaurs. " Desawn blinked. Then he stood up slightly straighter. Not a lot of people know the difference between terasaurs and dinosaurs, he said.
I looked it up, Clare said. After your dad mentioned it, I have questions. What questions? Is it true that Quzel Coatas Northropi had a wingspan that made it roughly the size of a small airplane? The silence that followed lasted approximately 2 seconds.
Then Deshawn turned to Marcus with an expression that Marcus had never seen on his son's face before. Wide eyes, the look of a person who has just found something they didn't know they were looking for. She knows about Quzel Coatlas, Desawn said, like a statement of fact, like a verdict. She looked it up, Marcus said. Dawn looked back at Clare.