On the other, she had learned — really learned, in her body and not just her head — that she was no longer facing them alone, that the grandmother who’d died had reached forward through time to shield her, that the man beside her had walked through the door without being begged, that her son would grow up encircled by exactly the kind of fierce, chosen love his grandparents had refused to give.

Grief and joy, she was discovering, were not opposites.

They were neighbors.

They lived on the same street, and on certain days they came out onto their porches at the same hour and sat together in the fading light, and you did not have to choose between them.

You only had to let them both be there, and keep breathing, and hold your sleeping child while they did.

Chapter 13 — The Financial Oxygen