Christopher was more my family than most of the people who shared my blood.

And I have come to believe this is truer of the world than we admit: that family, the real kind, is not primarily a matter of blood or law but of chosen, sustained attention, and that some of the deepest bonds a person will ever have are with people the census would never file beside them.

Blood makes relatives.

Attention makes family.

Mr.

Christopher paid me a wage, and I earned it honestly, and none of that was family.