But I nursed them, privately, and I found what felt like evidence for them everywhere.

The way Gabriel lingered on our front porch when it was time for him to leave, as though reluctant to end the day.

The way he laughed at the small particular things Gemma said, the jokes that only someone truly inside our little family would find funny, which I took as proof that he was inside it, that he belonged to us, that he was, in some way I had not yet made official even in my own heart, already half mine.

I genuinely believed he saw the same future I saw.