There were stretches, in the early years, when I’d lie on that ruined sofa after Keegan was asleep and feel the walls of the life I’d chosen press in close, and wonder, in the honest dark, whether I’d thrown away my own future to salvage his.

I’d be lying to call myself a hero who never doubted.

But here is the thing I understood only later, and it changed how I saw all of it: the life I thought I’d given up was never as good as the one I got.

The careless young man I’d been was lonelier than he’d admit, drifting, waiting for something to give his days a shape.

Keegan gave them a shape.