He became simply their father.
Not because a DNA test told them to.
Because he earned it.
As for me, I learned something too.
For years, I thought closure meant making Adrian understand what he had done to me.
It didn’t.
Closure came when I stopped needing him to understand.
He eventually did.
But by then, I had already healed.
On that second Christmas, we sat around the enormous dining table at Cedarcrest.
Ethan was telling a ridiculous story.
Daniel was arguing with Noah.
Samuel was stealing food from everyone’s plate.
Adrian was laughing.
I looked around the table.
Eight years earlier, I had believed that losing my husband meant losing the family I had dreamed about.
I was wrong.
The family I dreamed about had been sitting in my kitchen all along.
Four boys.
Four little pieces of a life I built myself.
