The people who will always love you are precisely the ones you must never let yourself take for granted, because they are the ones holding you up.

You learned that the hard way.

I hope—” and here my own voice caught, just slightly, because he was still my son and I would love him until I died “—I hope you teach your boy a better lesson than the one you had to learn.

I hope you teach him what a mother’s love is worth, before he has to lose it to find out.”

Steven nodded, silently, and a tear slid down his cheek and he let it.