Katie lowered her head. There were no checks left to write, no calls left to make.

After the hearing, Nellie went with Alistair to the quiet cemetery where Sawyer was buried. Alistair had never been there. He set a toy doctor’s kit among the flowers on the stone.

“I have no right to call myself his father,” he said, crying.

“You lost that right long ago,” Nellie said gently. “But you can still spend your life honoring him.”

He knelt at the grave and read his son’s name. He didn’t ask for a miracle. He only made himself a promise — to ask one question before every choice he made from then on: Would Sawyer be proud of me? Nellie stood near him in the cool air.

She didn’t take his hand, but she didn’t leave him alone either.