Patricia had looked into it.

She had seen, in the space of one sentence from a ten-year-old holding a wallet, precisely the kind of person she had allowed herself to become, and she did not flinch from the seeing, and she did the one thing that can be done with that knowledge, which is to hand it forward, transformed, to the child who had shown it to her.

I did not forgive her for Maya’s sake, exactly, or for hers.

But I stopped being angry somewhere in there, and I think it was at the moment I understood that her blessing to my daughter was really an apology to herself.

Chapter 20 — Forgiving Isn’t Forgetting

Down at the baggage claim, while we waited for the carousel to start and for our stroller and suitcases to appear, Maya wandered over to Leo’s carrier and gently patted his tiny hand where it had worked its way free of the blanket.