She told him she had held his children during nights when they were too small to keep warm without specialized care and their mother was too tired to stand.

‘I won’t ask you to forgive me,’ Terrence said.

‘Good,’ she replied.

‘Because I’m still deciding what I think of you.’

Then Wyatt ran out carrying a cardboard rocket, and Ruth told him to fetch the launch stand.

The adults moved aside to watch.

There would be no shortcut around the years Terrence had missed, no single conversation that turned everyone into friends.

But on that afternoon, he stood beside a woman who had helped raise his children and listened when she described their early lives.