The relative who takes the child is usually asked.

The relative’s spouse is usually informed.

And that spouse then does approximately the same amount of work, gets approximately none of the moral credit, cannot complain because the child is not theirs and because the whole household is organized around a catastrophe, and is frequently the person who quietly falls apart in year two.

Hugo did not fall apart.

He got quiet in the second winter and I noticed, because he had told me to, and we did another four sessions.

Esme calls him Papo.