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up
for a few seconds, but he can't really stand by himself yet.”
    “But
he’s not even crawling yet.”
    She
chuckled, irrationally pleased that Adam was so impressed by her
seven-month-old son. “He scoots himself around sometimes. But, no, he doesn’t
really crawl. He doesn’t want to bother with something as mundane as crawling.
He wants to jump right into walking.”
    Logan
was pushing himself up again and managed to teeter on his feet for a few
seconds before he sat down hard.
    This
time, he looked over at Zoe with an outraged expression and babbled out his
frustration.
    “I
didn’t do it to you,” she told him, “You just have to try even harder.”
    Logan
babbled a little more. Then he tried to push himself up again.
    Adam
appeared mesmerized by this activity, and Zoe suppressed a laugh as she went
back to her documents. She supposed he had virtually no experience with
children, so it was all new to him, but it was kind of funny to watch the
brilliant man try to solve little Logan like he was a puzzle.
    The
next time she looked up, Adam said, “He’d do better if he supported himself on
the couch. That tabletop is too low so he keeps falling down.”
    Zoe
laughed out loud. “You go right ahead and give him that advice.”
    Adam’s
eyebrows drew together briefly, as if he couldn’t figure out whether she was
serious or not.
    She
glanced at her watch. “It’s actually time for his dinner. Do you mind if I give
him some food?”
    “Of
course not.” Adam began to straighten the stack of papers, as she went to pick
Logan up from the floor and settle him in his highchair.
    Zoe
then pulled some baby food out of the refrigerator. Since she’d had a lot of
spare time lately, she’d been making homemade food for Logan. Now, she mixed up
some porridge and spooned out puréed carrots.
    When
she returned to Logan’s highchair, she saw Adam had been watching her. “Guess
he’s not old enough for sushi yet?” he said in a dry voice.
    Zoe
laughed as she fed Logan his first bite, carefully avoiding his flailing arm.
“He’s a good eater, but that might be pushing it.”
    Logan
liked the porridge. But, when she tried to feed him the carrots, he made a face
and spit them out. Used to this behavior, she tried again.
    “He
doesn’t like carrots,” Adam said.
    “He
used to like them. Now he just wants fruit. But he still has to eat his
vegetables.”
    She
managed to get Logan to swallow a couple of bites, although he babbled out his
discontent and waved his arm rather grumpily. On one of the waves, he managed
to hit the spoon, and a glob of carrots flew out of the spoon and smacked Zoe
in the eye.
    She
grunted and tried to wipe the carrots away. “That wasn’t very nice,” she
chided, having trouble seeing out of both eyes since they were tearing up so
much. After a minute of wiping at her eye, she asked Adam to watch him while
she went to rinse it out.
    Zoe
went into the bathroom to wash her face. When she stared at herself in the
mirror, she realized she looked pretty bad—her hair pulled up in a messy
ponytail, her sweatshirt too baggy, and her face kind of blotchy from the
carrot in the eye.
    With
a shrug, she started back, but then she heard Adam talking. It seemed so out of
place that she paused to listen.
    “Carrots
aren’t my favorite either, but your mom seems to think you should eat them.”
After a couple of Logan’s babbles, Adam continued, “No, you can’t have the
spoon. I'm trying to use it. Oh, all right, here it is. I’ll see if I can find
another one.”
    Fascinated,
Zoe moved toward the kitchen so she could see what was happening. She caught
sight of Adam as he was returning to the dining table with another baby spoon
in his hand. Logan was sitting happily in his highchair, banging his
commandeered spoon on the tray with carrot on his chin.
    Adam
caught her before she could see anything more. With a rueful half-smile, he
said, “I don’t seem to have any natural talent for