He reported his father’s absences the way a child reports the weather, as simple facts of a world he had no power to change, and then he moved on to happier things, because he had already learned — at eight — that dwelling on the ways the adults failed him only made the failing hurt more.

He had learned to manage his own disappointment quietly, tidily, so that it would not be a burden to anyone.

Adaira lay in the dark and listened to her son take care of a grief no child should carry, and she made herself a promise she had no visible means of keeping: that she would find a way back to him, and that when she did, he would never have to take care of himself alone again.

There was a particular ritual to his visits that she came to organize her whole day around, though she had no way to mark the hours except by him.

She would hear the elevator, and then the specific weight of small sneakers in the corridor, and then the scrape of the heavy chair being dragged closer to the bed than the nurses left it.

And then his voice, pitched low and private, telling her things.