It turned out there was a difference between knowing a thing in the abstract and watching your mother look at your newborn son for two seconds and pronounce him worthless.

Some part of her, she realized, had still been hoping — right up until the door opened — that they might surprise her.

That the baby might crack something open in them.

He hadn’t.

And letting go of that last hope was its own small bereavement, one she would grieve quietly for a long time, in the margins of the far larger joy sleeping in Bram’s arms.

Bram sat on the edge of the bed with their son and said nothing, which was exactly right.