And you — you are never going back anywhere, do you hear me?

You live here.

You and Daisy live here, with me, and that is never, ever going to change, no matter what breaks.” A single tear ran down his face.

“You’re not mad?” he whispered.

“I could never be mad at you over a train,” I said, and I opened my arms.

“Come here.” And he crawled across the rug and threw his arms around my neck, and for the first time since any of this began, my brave, watchful, exhausted little nephew stopped being a guardian and let himself be a six-year-old, and he cried — really cried, years of it — into my shoulder, and I held him, and I cried too.

“I’ve got you,” I told him.