Before I left, she offered me a copy of the photograph.

I placed it beside the one of my eighteen-year-old self holding Tobias.

Each showed a woman holding the same baby, two stories separated by paperwork and fear.

Neither erased the other.

PART 23

In June, Ruth invited us to a small family gathering to remember Daniel on the anniversary of his death.

She made his favorite lemon cake and placed his photograph beside a vase of wildflowers.

I had worried I would be intruding on something private.