I thought about all the ways a family can miss each other while standing in the same room.

I thought about how much of the distance in my life had been exactly this — not anyone’s coldness, but two shy people each waiting for the other to come first, and no Franny left to take both their hands and pull them into the middle.

And I resolved, sitting at that cutting table, that I would not do to Wren what I had done to Robin.

That I would learn, however late and however badly, to come first.