Whatever I had to give up or blow up or become.

He was going to grow up knowing he was worth staying for, even if I had to tear our entire life down to the studs to teach him.

Chapter 12 — The Folder

That evening, while Leo carefully packed his very favorite books into a canvas bag — keeping them close now, where no one could box them up — I went to my desk, and I opened the folder I had hidden in the bottom drawer.

I had not assembled it in a night.

I had been building it, in secret, for longer than I had admitted even to myself.