A few days later, their kitchen table looked like a paper factory had exploded on it.
Forms from the rebuild office. Follow-up questionnaires from Family Services. New emergency contact cards from the school.
Boxes everywhere, begging to be filled with names and neat definitions.
"Emergency Contact," William read. "That's easy. You put 'Dad.'"
"That was before," Melissa said.
"Primary Caregiver," Melissa read off a different form. "We're really doing this."
In the old life, it had been simple.
On every form, Melissa wrote her own name and drew a line through the "Other Parent" section. No space for someone who only appeared in stories.
Albert, when he remembered to fill out school forms at all, wrote his name and his parents' address—the house they'd always assumed William would end up at if things truly went sideways.
"Start with the obvious," Melissa said. "For Maya, I put me."
The pen hovered over the line.
She thought of all the nights lately when it wasn't her the girl reached for first, but the boy across the hall who woke quicker and got the water faster.
Across the table, Albert filled in "Primary Caregiver for William" and paused.
He'd always checked that box without thinking. Of course it was him. Who else was there?
But his brain kept dragging up scenes that didn't fit the simple story.
Melissa at the stove, stirring the soup that had somehow become their evening ritual.
Melissa in the doorway of William's room, double-checking his homework even when she was so tired she swayed.
Melissa at the fridge, slapping up sticky notes that read like stubborn little promises.
"Can you put two names?" William asked.
"Form says one," Albert said.
"But in real life there's four," Maya pointed out.
Melissa snorted. "The state of California doesn't have a box for that yet."
"Maybe they should," Maya said.
They ended up compromising with parentheses and extra lines and very small handwriting.
On Maya's form, Melissa wrote:
Primary Caregiver: Melissa Harris (mother).
And in the margins: "Daily caregiving shared with Albert Jones (co-resident adult)."
On William's, Albert wrote:
Primary Caregiver: Albert Jones (father).
And: "Household caregiving shared with Melissa Harris."
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't official language. But it felt closer to the truth than pretending they were each doing this alone.
The kids' school had sent home small laminated cards with a single question:
"In an emergency, who should we call first?"
William wrote DAD, then stared at it for a long time.
Maya, after much erasing, wrote two names, then circled them both.
William leaned over. "Who'd you put first?"
"Mom," she said. "Then Albert."
She traced the circle around their names. "That makes them one person on the card. They can share."
On the back of his own card, William borrowed a pen and wrote a sentence in cramped letters:
"If one adult is not there, talk to the other one. They both show up."
Nobody had asked for that line.
It felt more important than any of the boxes.
By the time they finished, Melissa's signature was starting to look wobbly around the edges from being written so many times.
Albert slid the rebuild forms into an envelope and sealed it.
"I'll drop this at the office," he said. "On the way, I wanna check something at the community center."
"What something?" Melissa asked.
"That flyer I told you about," he said. "Family story thing. Free pictures."
"Oh." She tried to sound casual. "That."
At the community center bulletin board, the flyer was still there: bright colors, big letters.
DISASTER FAMILY STORIES – PHOTO EXHIBIT.
The photo on the poster showed a family of three standing in front of a scorched house. Their smiles were crooked and too wide, the way people smile when they're trying to be fine.
Underneath: "Free family portrait + your story."
Albert stood there longer than he meant to, envelope warm in his hand.
We're not… that, he thought. Not exactly.
But when he imagined a picture like that without Maya or Melissa in it, something in him balked.
He walked home more slowly than usual.
By the time he reached their door, he'd made up his mind to ask a question that scared him more than the rebuild program did.
"How would you all," he planned to say, "feel about taking a family photo?"