Liam nodded, filed it, and asked if he could have the eggs now.

Blood makes you related; only respect makes you a family.

I said that at a New Year’s table a year after all of this, and I believed it completely, and it got me through several difficult months.

It’s half of something.

Because Alma Salas is blood, and blood was the only claim she had, and it wasn’t enough — she was owed that boy and she got thirteen envelopes into a closet and three supervised hours in 2017.

Blood didn’t make her family.