This time he didn’t worry about my stitches.

They had healed months ago.

“Thank you, Mom,” he said.

Across the picnic table Ruth smiled.

There was no tension in her face, no fear that the word had taken something from her.

I understood then that the best part of finding my son was not reclaiming what had been stolen from me.

It was discovering that love did not have to be divided into shares to be fair.

PART 26