Cassian kept the familiar number.

Poppy wanted that.

But she also had more than one clearly identified adult she could contact, using the tablet or asking whoever was with her.

Miriam.

Helena.

Her grandmother.

Cassian’s assistant knew a message concerning Poppy required a direct response or a clear alternative, not an assumption that the household had it handled.

Most importantly, Cassian stopped arranging all contact through another person.

He called Poppy herself.

When she was unavailable, he left a message in his own voice.

Not a report from an adult saying she was fine.

Not a photograph interpreted for him.

A real attempt to speak to his daughter.

At first, she answered immediately every time.

Once, he called while she was painting and she got blue fingerprints across the screen.

“You can wash your hands first,” he said.

“But you called.”

“I can wait.”

“What if I miss it?”

“I’ll try again.”

“What if you don’t?”

He took a breath.

“Then you can contact another grown-up and ask them to help. And I will take responsibility for calling when I said I would.”

Poppy looked toward Miriam.

The nanny nodded.

Over the following weeks, Cassian proved the arrangement in unremarkable ways.

He called.

He listened.

He learned that a conversation could matter even if its most urgent subject was a classmate who believed worms had eyebrows.

Sometimes Poppy had very little to say.

He did not treat that as wasted time.

He let the call end.

She was allowed to reach him.

She was also allowed to be busy herself.

The hardest change was not in Poppy’s tablet.

It was in Cassian.

He discovered how often he offered attention while doing something else.

A question answered with one eye on a message.

A drawing admired while he signed a document.

A story interrupted by a call he could have returned later.

He had always believed he could follow several things at once.

At work, that ability earned admiration.

At home, his daughter had begun shortening stories so he would not have to choose.

He noticed it one evening when she described an argument at school.

She started with three people and a missing pencil case.

Halfway through, his phone lit up.

Poppy stopped.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Cassian turned the phone over.