I was reaching for the resources that would let me bring Maya home, yes.

But I was also, in the same motion, ending nine years of silence with my brother, reopening a door I had bolted shut and told myself I would never touch again.

I could not have one without the other.

Maya required Arthur; her rescue ran directly through the relationship I had abandoned.

And I have thought since about the strange mercy of that, the way the child forced the reconciliation, the way I could not save my sister’s daughter without also, in the same breath, repairing my sister’s family.

If Maya had been a stranger’s child, I might have found some other lawyer, some other way, and left the wall between Arthur and me standing forever.