I have made my peace with not knowing.

My job was never to decide it for them.

My job was only to keep the record honest and the door, someday, open — and to make sure that whatever they choose, they choose it as free people, standing on a floor I spent my life making solid, owing no one an apology for existing.

Chapter 15 — Annapolis

We live now in a gray-shingled house near the water in Annapolis, with a wide porch and a yard that runs down toward the bay, and on most mornings the light comes off the water and fills the kitchen while the children argue pleasantly over the last of the pancakes.

Wes is twelve and helps the younger ones with their homework and has decided he will be an engineer.