Life doesn’t hand out tidy endings, and I’ve stopped pretending it owes me one.

Some days I look at Matthias, at the real work he is doing, at the father he is becoming to all five of them, and I can imagine a way back.

Other days I remember the speed of that verdict in the hospital, the door that was already open in him, and I cannot.

I hold both.

I am allowed to hold both.

That, too, is something I had to learn — that I do not owe anyone, least of all him, a resolution on a schedule, and that “I don’t know” is a complete and honorable answer to give a man who once demanded certainty of me and offered none in return.