“Not this time.”

“You should.”

“Maybe next time.”

She moved a toy on the carpet, satisfied that the matter could wait.

I put the folder away and sat beside her.

There was no secret fortune in the next room and no completed guardianship order on the table.

There was a letter, a photograph, a boy whose name I now understood, and a choice I was making carefully rather than all at once.

I could not give Simon back the brother he never had the chance to know.

But perhaps, with time and the right support, I could help make sure his family was not lost twice.