“Oh, Sam,” she says. “The way I love you is real. There’s nothing realer than that.”

Sam gets up, and without looking at any of us, moves past me and stalks out the door.

“Sam—”

Oliver gets out of his seat, ready to go after him.

“Leave him,” Abigail says from the phone. “Give him a minute.”

Sam’s bedroom door slams upstairs.

I don’t know if Abigail hears it but her gaze locks on mine, and for a moment there’s a bolt of some shared emotion between us.

“Maybe I should just check on Sam—” Mom starts, but Abigail snaps.

“He doesn’t need you right now. Gillie”—she looks at me—“go and see if he’ll talk to me, will you?”

I glance at Mom and Oliver before I take the phone and leave. Upstairs, I knock on Sam’s door.

“Sam—honey? It’s your mom. She’s still on the phone. She’d really like to talk to you.” When he doesn’t answer I crack the door. He’s lying on his bed, arms around a pillow. As I open the door he turns away from me.

“This makes me sad too, Sam,” I say. “I liked sharing more DNA with you.”

He makes a small, scoffing noise.

I take a breath. “But it is just DNA, Sam. It doesn’t get to decide the stuff that matters most.”

He doesn’t say anything. I move softly to the bed, and place the phone down by his pillow.

“Just talk to your mom. Okay?”

Downstairs I walk back into a kitchen that still vibrates with shellshock. Oliver’s making fresh coffee, and pauses to glance at me with a what the hell look. Mom’s usually straight back is slumped, and she looks folded in on herself in a way that I can’t ever remember seeing before.

“He’s going to hate me now,” she says.

I shake my head.

“He’s angry.”

“He’s my grandson,” she says—not to me, but as a plea to the universe.

It’s not just Sam or Abigail: I’m angry at her too. I’m angry that she hoarded the truth instead of being free with it. I’m angry that she gave no one in her family, including herself, the breathing room we all needed. I’m angry that we all grew into the shapes we did and that maybe it never had to be this way. But right now, in this moment, something else crowds out the anger.

I go over and stand beside her, and I put my arms around her. And I hold her the way I remember her holding me once upon a time. Back when Abigail and I were very, very young; back before she decided we’d outgrown it. The grip that says I’ve got you, I’ve got you, and it’s all going to be okay.