Dinner at Aria's apartment became habit every week, as if by some unwritten agreement. Luna would ask on Tuesday whether "Mr. Knight" was attending dinner Saturday, and Xavier would report back with all the assuredness of a scheduled corporate meeting, and before long, Aria found herself preparing dinners for three and wondering at how her controlled life began to take on this domestic cadence.
"Mama, should we make the dumplings Mr. Knight likes?" Luna asked from on her stool in the kitchen, flour all over her small hands as she was attempting to roll out dough with four-year-old determination.
"His name is Xavier," Aria corrected her, gentling wondering when she had shifted, even in her own head, from "Mr. Knight" to "Xavier."
"Xavier," Luna repeated. Testing it out for the sound. "That's a nice name. It sounds important."
Aria smiled against her better judgement. "Yes, it does sound important."
Having done this for three months, she was beginning to see how the evolution felt dangerously natural. Xavier arrived each Saturday at precisely six o'clock, with a little token for Luna--educational toys or books that were related to whatever scientific concept she had fixated on that week.
Luna would give him a tour of her latest projects, Xavier would help with cooking prep while fielding her endless questions, and they would sit down to dinner and discuss anything from the migration patterns of butterflies to the economic principles behind Singapore's development as an international financial center.
It was the family dinners Aria had never allowed herself to picture, now muddied by the burgeoning sense that Xavier's place in their lives was heading toward necessity instead of option.
"When's Xavier getting here?" Luna asked, casting aside her dough-rolling to glance at the clock on the wall.
"Shortly, baby. He is always very punctual."
"That's one of the things I like about him," Luna said, her tone precise as if issuing a judgment. "He is dependable like you."
The unthinking observation jolted Aria with an unpleasant sense of recognition. Luna was cataloging Xavier's traits in the same systematic way she approached everything, and her assessment indicated she was developing ambitions and commitment to him as a human being, not just for his attention.
The doorbell rang precisely at six PM, as had been the case for twelve Saturdays to this date.
Luna exclaimed, "Xavier's here!" as she dashed toward the door, exuding the excitement she had started to show when he visited for dinner. "Mama, he's here!"
Aria opened the door to find Xavier standing there holding a small wrapped package. He wore a look of anticipation that made him so comfortable at family dinners, which had replaced the once present uncertainty.
"Good evening, Luna," he said as he squatted to her height, continuing the ritual they had ignited. "I brought you something I thought you might like."
Luna accepted the package respectfully and unwrapped it to unveil a children's book about coding principles. "Oh! This is perfect! I was wondering about how to make the computer understand more complicated instructions!"
"I figured that you would be ready for more advanced concepts," said Xavier who wore a proud flabbergast of admiration for her budding intellectual enterprise.
As they spread out into their familiar dance of dinner making, Aria watched Xavier swim through her kitchen with ease as he started to know where she kept the good knives, how she preferred veggies chopped, even the cabinet where the safer dishes for Luna were stored. His actions moved out of the category of intrusion and into a category of integration at a speed that scared her less than it should have.
"Xavier, can you help me with something?" Luna asked as she perched herself on her usual stool while Xavier gathered the remaining ingredients to prepare the stir-fry sauce. "At school, Emma said her daddy teaches her special things that only daddies can teach. What special things do daddies teach that mommies don't?"
The question was like a mini-explosion in the kitchen. Aria's hands stopped moving on top of the rice cooker, Xavier's spoon momentarily paused amid stirring. Luna's gray eyes moved back and forth, sensing the sudden tension in the space around her but not understanding it at all.
"Well," Xavier began slowly, "I think different parents, mommies and daddies alike, teach whatever they are knowledgeable about and have interests in. Your mama has taught you how to do research, analytical thinking, and how to find patterns - all skills that you will use for your whole life."
"But what would you teach me?" Luna pressed on, her still-four-year-old logic going straight to the point. "If you were... if you were my daddy, what special things would you want me to learn?"
Aria pushed out the air she was holding.
Luna's question was innocent and casual, but devastatingly so—Luna was actively imagining Xavier as a father figure and pondering their relationship as if it were official.
Xavier placed his spoon down and turned toward Luna, his expression carefully considered—serious but kind. "If I was your daddy, I would want to teach you what it means to believe in yourself, even when it feels impossible. I want you to know how to create things that matter, how to solve problems that help other people, and how to be brave enough to try a new approach when the old approach didn't work."
"Those sound like very important things," Luna said.
"They are important," said Xavier. "But the most important thing I would want you to learn is that you're already amazing as you are. You don't have to change any part of who you are in order to be worthy of love and respect."
The words seemed to linger in the air around Aria and Luna, even though their meaning felt bigger than the immediate moment. Aria understood the emotion behind Xavier's response and it seemed to come from a place of conviction about what he wanted Luna to know about herself rather than hypothetical advice.
"Mama teaches me that too," Luna said, turning to include Aria in the conversation. "She says I'm perfect just the way I am, and that asking questions makes me interesting instead of annoying."
"Your mama is absolutely right," Xavier said, his voice thick with feeling. "You should never stop asking questions."
As they moved through dinner preparation, the conversation shifted to safer topics, but Aria could feel the undercurrent of Luna's growing attachment to Xavier and his obvious deepening connection to her. The hypothetical nature of their relationship was becoming increasingly strained against the reality of their weekly interactions.
During dinner, Luna announced her latest project: a presentation about family structures for her pre-K class.
"I'm going to explain how some families have one parent, some have two parents, some have grandparents, and some have other combinations," she said, consulting notes she'd written in her careful block letters. "Mrs. Chen says families are defined by love, not by structure."
"That's a very wise approach," Xavier said. "What examples are you planning to use?"
"Well, there's my family, and that's me and Mama," Luna shared, holding up her fingers. "And Emma's family, and that's Emma and her mama and daddy. And Marcus's family, and that's Marcus and his two daddies."
After a moment, she looked directly at Xavier. "And there are families that grow, like when something important happens in your life that means someone is part of your life now, even if they are not there from the start."
She delivered this thought with her usual end-of-story? tone, but the meaning was not lost. In effect, she was giving voice to why Xavier, in a way, had become a part of their family, and in saying so, acknowledged that they were moving past the designation of "friends," and this relationship was now something bigger.
"That's really a nice way to think about it," Xavier said quietly. "There are many ways families can grow."
"Yep," Luna agreed. "And sometimes people who really care about each other make ways to still be family even when things become complicated."
After dinner, while they cleaned up, Luna made a claim that rocked the boat.
"Xavier, I've been thinking of what to call you," she said while she dried the dishes with her usual level of thoroughness.
"Dad Knight feels too formal for now that we are friends. Xavier is nice, but I really feel like he is just some regular grown-up."
She stopped and thought about what she was saying. "Would it be alright if I called you something to make you special to me? Like... like a family name?"
Aria felt her heart stop. Luna was asking for permission to make them a family in ways that called attention to what they had all been avoiding saying out right.
"What did you have in mind for a family name?" Xavier asked, very carefully.
Luna looked between them and with the authority of a four-year-old said, "Could I call you Daddy? Because that is what you are to me, it is just complicated."
There was a moment of silence in the kitchen and then the room shook with the simple statement. Xavier's face went through shock, overwhelming joy and what looked an awful lot like fear. As she struggled to understand the tears brimming in her eyes, Aria realized that this moment meant a lot of different things for everyone.
"Luna," Aria finally spoke, unsure how to move forward now that everything had changed.
"I know he is my daddy," Luna continued, her voice complete with the same calm certainty that all her logical conclusions held.
"He has my eyes, he thinks like me, and he loves me the way all daddies love their children. I've been working this out for weeks."
She turned to Xavier. He looked like he'd been struck by lightning. "So could I call you Daddy? If that's what you want?"
Xavier knelt to Luna's eye level, his hands wavering a bit when he reached out to cup her small face with trembling hands. "Luna, it would be my honor if you'd called me Daddy. There's nothing in this entire world that I want more."
"Good," she said with satisfaction and threw her arms around his neck with wild enthusiasm. "I love you, Daddy."
"I love you too, sweetheart," he whispered, remembering in that moment how perfect it was to be a father. "So very much."
Aria stood and watched them hug, and she realized at that moment, that all of the walls she had painstakingly built for their relationship had been come down by her four-year-old's emotional intelligence, and the logic of her four-year-old's intent.
Luna had claimed Xavier as her father, and although he didn't actually have a fatherly bone in his body, he had accepted the designation with every thing that he had. And just like that, it was one family of two had become a family of three, and with all of the entanglements and uncertainties and complications that come with three - versus two.
Game on. Everything had completely changed, and there was no way to put it back.