I thought about the night he had arrived at the hospital in his rain-soaked coat.

Back then, the sound of a door opening had frightened me.

Now I heard doors opening all the time: the farmhouse door, my own apartment door, the library door, the pediatric clinic.

People came and went, and I was learning to trust that not every departure meant abandonment.

PART 13

Noah’s first birthday arrived on a clear Sunday morning.

I had planned a small gathering, partly because I had learned the hard way that babies were unimpressed by elaborate events and partly because I wanted the day to belong to him, not to the adults’ unresolved stories.

We held it at Richard and Beatrice’s farmhouse.