I have never once added it up, because the arithmetic runs the other way from how you’d expect.

I did not lose a life and gain a duty.

I had been living a small life and did not know it, and two frightened kids in a county car turned it into a large one.

I cleared my tools and my table saw out of the spare room.

I turned my woodshop-slash-junk-room into a bedroom for a six-year-old boy, and I turned the little office into a room for a three-year-old girl, and I put a nightlight in each, and I stood in the doorways at midnight looking at two small empty beds a stranger had told me needed filling.

I bought a booster seat and child locks and a stepstool for the bathroom sink.