And I simply held my daughter, and waited, and let Marcus turn to see the man walking toward us across the marble floor.

It is worth pausing on Emma, here, on the fact of her, because she was the piece of the puzzle that Marcus could least have anticipated and least understood.

He had told me, on our last night, that no one would want a divorced woman starting over at thirty-three, and folded into that cruelty was a whole set of assumptions about what my life would be: barren, diminished, alone.

He could imagine me single, or perhaps remarried to some lesser man, but he could not have imagined this specific joy, a daughter, adopted, chosen, running across a ballroom to launch herself into my arms with her whole trusting weight.