Breakfast at the same time every morning.

The same walk to the same park.

Bath, book, bed, the same three in the same order, because the sameness itself was the point — every repeated safe day another small deposit against a debt of fear I hadn’t incurred but had inherited the paying of.

There were hard nights.

Ollie had them worse than Josie; he’d wake with the terror still on him and not know where he was, and I’d sit on his floor in the dark, not touching him until he was ready, just being a calm voice saying it’s Uncle Cal, you’re in your room, the door’s open, Josie’s asleep across the hall, everybody’s safe, until his breathing came back down.

Josie, who was younger and had Ollie’s fierce shielding to thank for it, bounced back faster, and became, over that first year, a loud and bossy and joyful little tyrant, which felt like a small daily miracle every time she pitched a completely ordinary three-year-old fit about the wrong color cup.