And Silas looked up at me too — and for just a fraction of a second, I saw the old fear flicker across his face, the lifelong terror that loving one person left no room for another, that Daisy calling me Mom might cost him something, or that his calling me Mom might cost her.

But before I could even answer, Daisy rolled her eyes and bumped her shoulder against his and said, “Fine, ask your mom then, you’re both completely annoying,” and the fear went out of his face as fast as it had come, chased off by the sheer ordinariness of a little sister being exasperated with everyone at once.

I brought out a pitcher of lemonade and sat on the bench to watch the two of them bicker over a hammer in the sun.

The silence that had once filled every room of my house — the silence I had walked into that agency to escape — was simply gone, and I could not for the life of me remember exactly when it had left.