But I know that the warm home I live in now was bought, in part, with the shock of discovering exactly how cold the other one had always been, and I would not trade the warmth back, not for anything, not even to un-know what it cost me to learn.

Chapter 19 — Wilmington

Eighteen months later, the early-autumn sun washed over the porch of our home in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the air smelled of salt water and pine and the pecan pie Wendy had baked that morning, and I sat on the wooden porch swing and watched my son learn to walk.

His name is Leo.

He was nineteen months old that afternoon, with his mother’s bright, watchful hazel eyes and an unruly mop of dark hair that stuck up in every direction no matter what we did to it.

He was taking shaky, determined steps across the grass, and every few steps he would look back at me, let out a high, triumphant squeal, and tumble forward onto the soft lawn, laughing at his own glorious clumsiness.