Hope’s first birthday arrived with a few paper lanterns, a homemade cake, and a living room full of people who had learned to ask before offering advice.

We kept the gathering small.

Mrs.

Alvarez brought fruit.

Hannah’s sister decorated the table with yellow stars.

Mason insisted that the cake needed a rocket because Hope was, in his words, the bravest astronaut in the family.

I had worried about the party for weeks.

There were so many ways to make a child’s milestone into a performance of adult suffering.