My manager asked whether I’d be comfortable assigning the factory inspection project to someone else permanently.

A year earlier, I would have taken the question as an insult.

Now I felt a strange lightness.

“Yes,” I said.

“Please give it to someone who can be there.”
I began taking morning walks with Liam in his stroller while Maya rested.

We visited a bakery near the river.

The woman behind the counter asked his name and handed me a napkin when he spat up on my coat.

It was a tiny, unremarkable moment, but I remembered it better than any view from a hotel window in Stuttgart.