I cannot take him away from his own mother. I cannot. I’m so many things, but I am not that person. I’ll take him and give him to her. I can’t live with myself if I don’t. Kyle will understand. The money we’ve spent—I’ll write some more songs. I’ll make it back. How can I look this sweet boy in the face every day if I don’t do the right thing?

And a little voice in my head said: Why is giving him back to this woman you know nothing about the right thing? What if she’s mentally ill?

Grant wriggled in his crib, eyes open, bored, but the stuffed dinosaur we brought him was tucked in the crib’s corner with him. I picked it up and nuzzled his nose with the toy. He watched me. No smile, no gurgle of recognition.

“Hello, sweet boy,” I said to him. “Hello, my boy.”

My boy. He won’t be my boy. I’m so sorry. I would have loved you so…

“Will you come to me?” I asked, and then I picked him up because he was not going to give an answer. He liked being held, I thought, but he didn’t cuddle up to me; he didn’t seek that comfort of contact. Because he didn’t know I would die for him. Mostly he just looked around.

I took the deepest breath of my life and walked him to the window.

She was out there, twenty feet away and below us two stories, looking up as though she were seeing the sun for the first time in forever. I could see the bright smile come across her face. She raised a hand toward him.

I lifted up her son’s—our son’s—hand toward her and waved back, very slightly.

I saw Anya was crying. Trying to smile.

I waved his hand again. Sasha…Grant…looked out the window like he’d never seen the view before. The snow. The clouds, from two stories up.

The woman.

The dog.

I saw it loping toward her, a big one, a breed—I don’t know breeds, but it was big and sleek, like a police dog, and I was powerless, but I gestured toward her. She just waved harder, and now I cried out in shock as the dog leapt upward.

Did she not hear it? Was she so laser-focused on her child, on seeing him for the first time in nine months, that she didn’t hear?