We agreed that reliability mattered more than generosity performed in bursts.

One evening, after we had gone through a folder of paperwork, she closed it and looked at me with tired eyes.

“You know what bothered me most during his first year?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“People kept asking whether you were coming back.

I didn’t have an answer.

I was recovering from having a baby, sleeping two hours at a time, and learning how to keep another person alive.

Sometimes somebody would ask about you while I was standing in the grocery store holding a crying infant.