That was the logic his mother had fed him and he had swallowed: this one isn’t working, so get another.

What he understood at last, standing in a kitchen six years too late, watching four children sleep in a pile of pillows, was that this logic was not merely cruel but wrong at the root, a total misunderstanding of what a family actually is.

A family is not a thing you get.

It is a thing you choose, over and over, especially when it is hard, especially when the house stops looking easy, especially when staying costs you something.

Elena had understood this from the beginning; it was why she had raised four premature infants alone rather than trap a man into returning.