“So do you.

We’ll make decisions about both.”

She needed to hear that helping her did not give me ownership of the life she would build afterward.

By late winter, the clothes I had packed for her discharge no longer fit over her belly.

She complained about it with such ordinary irritation that I took her shopping for something comfortable and did not turn the trip into a celebration she had not requested.

At a traffic light on the way home, we passed a bus shelter.