And there is a version of me, a more tired and more sentimental version, who would have handed them over on the strength of his tears and his good intentions and been grateful for the help.

But I knew something about Grayson that his tears did not change: that he was a man who had always shown up for the applause and vanished when it stopped.

A wedding is a performance.

So is a dramatic reunion with the children you never knew you had.

What I did not yet know was whether he could do the unglamorous part — the Tuesday part, the boring part, the showing up when no one is filming and there is no audience and a seven-year-old is being difficult and there is nothing in it for you but the child.

So I built a process that stripped away every stage he might have performed on, and left only the question that actually mattered, asked over and over across months: will you come back when it’s dull.