Arthur looked at me then, across the little bundle in my arms, and something broke through the grief on his face, something lighter, the first real warmth I had seen in him in nine years.

A slow, proud, slightly disbelieving smile.

“Single dad, huh?” he said.

I looked down at Maya, who had woken again and was regarding her newfound uncle with frank, open curiosity, and I felt the whole enormous truth of it settle over me, the truth that I had walked into that building a solitary man with no one in the world who needed me and was walking out a father.

“The proudest single dad in the world,” I said, and my voice cracked on it, and I did not care.