“I know what you meant,” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You’ve poured your whole heart into YLA, and I saw you with the kids at Noah’s party. It’s apparent how much they love you and why. You’re just as much a dad to some of them as you are to Noah.”

I’m quiet for a moment, thinking of all the kids in our school who don’t have dads, who come to me for advice, look to me for guidance.

“I did want more.” I sit beside her, take her hand, and the soft mattress gives beneath my additional weight. “We didn’t intend to get pregnant with Noah. Hell, it was the worst timing. I was a poor doctoral student barely able to take care of myself, but later, after Aiko and I had been together for years and things stabilized, I wanted another baby.”

“And?” she asks, her voice quiet, yet alert with something I’m not sure of yet.

“And Ko didn’t. She’d sacrificed a lot. Delayed some opportunities when she had Noah, moved to Atlanta because I wanted to set the school up here. The last thing I wanted to do was make her feel pressure.”

“How’d that make you feel?” Kimba asks.

“I didn’t resent it at all.”

Kimba breathes out a little laugh, looks down at our hands in her lap. “In some ways I envy her.”

“No.” I angle until I can see her face, look into her eyes. “You have nothing to be jealous of. You know that, right?”

“She had all those years with you. She’s had a life with you.” She dips her chin to her chest. “A child with you. I wouldn’t trade the path I’ve chosen for anyone else’s. I love the choices I’ve made. I stand by them, but choosing one thing often means not choosing something else. I look at my sister. She complains, but her kids are the joy of her life.”

“I’m sure you had offers,” I force myself to say, not wanting to hear about the men she could have had and kept. I’m just glad she didn’t tie herself permanently to any of them so I can have her now.

“Daddy used to say don’t waste time on things that don’t set you on fire inside, and I haven’t. Every campaign, every election, each candidate—I’ve believed in. I believed that putting that person in power advanced one of my convictions.”

She bites her bottom lip. “I felt the same about people. I didn’t want to waste time on anyone who didn’t set me on fire inside. And there have been people I liked, people I enjoyed sex with, but no one I wanted to build a life with. That’s why I never committed. No one ever set me on fire inside.”