That is perhaps the cruelest calculation in the whole design: that she used the very grief we were trying to heal from as the lever to move us, offering herself as the answer to a loss she had every intention of deepening.

A family in the aftermath of a death is a family with its guard down, aching for repair, and she knew it, and she walked in through that opening.

And a person that hungry does not investigate the meal.

I wanted a partner so badly, wanted Hannah to have some version of a mother again so badly, wanted to stop being tired and alone so badly, that when Brenda said the right words, I did not test them.

I received them with gratitude, and gratitude, I have learned, is a very poor security clearance.