“Margaret, I’ve been in therapy for four months.” She said it flatly, almost amused. “You cannot fix a twenty-year-old fear with a person. Nobody can be somebody else’s medicine.

That’s the whole first month.”

I laughed, which surprised us both, and then I put my hands over my face.

“I never told anyone,” I said. “About Devon. Not Helen. Not Dana, not properly. I let people think I stopped fostering because of you.”

“Why?”

“Because losing you to an aunt who took you three states away is a story where I’m allowed to be angry,” I said. “Losing him to a woman who did everything right is a story where I’m just a person who was in the way for two years.”