There is no describing what that does to a person — recognizing yourself in a child you did not know existed until a week ago.

It was not a thought; it landed somewhere below thought, in the body, the way you flinch before you know why.

Some animal part of me knew those two children were mine before any birth certificate confirmed it, knew it from a head-tilt and the shape of an eye, and that knowing arrived with a grief so total it had no bottom — because in the same instant I understood they were mine, I understood how much of them I had already lost.

Four and a half years.

First steps I would never see.

First words spoken to other people.