The kids wanted to play Pictionary.
We got the box down, cleared the table, sorted the cards, found the timer. The whole setup. Everyone was into it.
Then we remembered.
Four players required.
There was a pause. The three of us looked at each other.
That pause could have gone a few different ways. I've had moments like it where the math of a smaller family shows up without warning and it just lands wrong. A table that's too big. A car that's too quiet. An extra seat.
This time we all just laughed.
We made up our own rules. It didn't really work. Nobody cared. We played anyway.
I don't know exactly when the shift happens, when the three of us stopped feeling like a family missing something and started just feeling like us. But that night was somewhere in it.
Four players required.
We had three.
It was enough.