“Mommy,” Hazel called, “does this one need a door?”

“Every house needs a way for people to come and go,” I said.

She thought about that and cut an opening with a plastic toy.

I remembered the day I had walked away from Nathaniel’s enormous Connecticut house carrying an old laptop and a suitcase.

I had believed I was leaving with almost nothing.

I hadn’t known the three lives already growing inside me, or the family of friends I would find, or the work I would build in my own name.

I hadn’t known an airport reunion would force an entire powerful family to confront its history.