When the Eight-Year-Old Boy We Were Adopting Came Home With Everything He Owned in a Black Bag—Then My Missing Brother’s Watch Fell Onto His Bed

Now I understood there was nothing defective about the name his parents had built a life under.

David had chosen Reed during a period of shame.

He also lived more honestly under that name than he had during his final Mercer years.

People are complicated.

Names too.

Julian became Dad long before I became Mom.

Then I became Mom more often.

Then, strangely, during college Oliver occasionally returned to: