“Consider it done,” Arthur said, and there was no hesitation in him either.

“I’ll start the emergency kinship process from the car.

There are proper channels for a blood relative stepping forward, and we are going to walk every one of them, cleanly, so this holds up forever.

I’m getting in my car right now, Julian.

I’ll be in Colfax by noon.” I told him I would be waiting.

I hung up the phone, and I pushed the folder back across the desk, and I looked down at the sleeping child in my arms who was, I now knew, my own niece, my sister’s daughter, and I understood that I was not leaving that building without her.

There is a particular clarity that arrives, once or twice in a life if you are fortunate, when all the ordinary noise of doubt and calculation simply stops, and you know, with your whole self and past all argument, exactly what you are going to do.