OH OH ALSO the maddie of it all. buck later has dinner with maddie and they watch theo and jee play while buck tells her about all of it and after a pause she's like: 'you know-- sometimes, jee reminds me of daniel.'
and buck looks at her and maddie shrugs and smiles and goes 'daniel was-- you looked alike, yeah, but you two had very different personalities.' she looks over at their kids for a moment, and then: 'they both have that little scrunched-up serious look, when they're trying to decide on something. it's uncanny.'
buck listens to her, and goes: 'oh, i didn't know.'
and maddie says: 'yeah, because jee is her own person. i never wanted to make her feel like anything less. it just-- it surprised me, at first, when mom and dad played with her so much, and never commented on how she also picked out all the red skittles from a bag first.'
the two of them sit with that for a bit, and then maddie sighs. 'sometimes i think-- they loved daniel, they really did. but it's been three decades, and i wonder if they still love him, or just the space he left behind.'
buck looks at the way jee is playing with theo, solemnly teaching him how to play with her barbies, and wonders if there had been a world where daniel played with him with that same little-kid seriousness, the kind that maddie never really could give him, because she'd been so much older than him.
'hey,' he says, nudging her in the side. 'you still love him. that means something.'
'yeah,' and she puts her head on his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around her, and they both see their kids playing together -- all the bits of them that were made from others, yes, but themselves, too. jee and theo, grinning in the evening light, so, so loved.
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