The hardest single day was the third of March.

Auggie’s birthday.

Linus’s birthday.

There were eleven one-year-olds and a bear cake and my mother-in-law in my kitchen, and at one point in the afternoon Lorna Renfrew put her hand on my arm and said, “You’re doing so well, sweetheart.

He’d be proud of you.”

And I said, “Thank you, Lorna.”

And I went and stood in the bathroom for about ninety seconds and came back out and cut a cake.

Part Eight: Eleven Hundred and Forty Pages