I also recognized that sharing responsibility could be healthy when the person accepting it understood the work involved.

Terrence was beginning to demonstrate that understanding.

I did not interpret a new contact number as a promise that everything would be easy.

I interpreted it as one carefully considered step toward making the children’s world larger.

A few days later Terrence sent me a message after receiving the updated schedule.

I appreciate being included, he wrote.

Tell me if there is anything I need to learn before the school year gets busy.

There was plenty to learn.