“They’re ours,” I told her. “All the way ours. Nobody lent them to us and nobody can take them back. That makes them worth more than anything fancy we’d have to give back someday.”

She thought about that with her whole face, and then nodded, satisfied.

“Then these are probably the fanciest plates anybody’s ever had,” she said.

A few months later we moved into a three-bedroom rental in the same school district.

Every child got a room of their own. Every kitchen drawer opened like it was supposed to.

And there was a little courtyard out back with enough grass for a summer evening.