Chapter Text
In the weeks after his mom starts dating Emma Swan (yeah, they’re definitely dating, no matter how many times his mom throws around phrases like “just friends” and “taking it slow”), Henry finds himself saying "Don't make it weird" so frequently he considers writing it across his forehead. It's not so much that Emma makes things weird: all things considered, her gradual integration into their family life feels as natural as it could. No, it's everyone else that's a problem. For whatever reason, his mom's reentry into the dating world seems to have awakened a sleeping dragon in the form of random acquaintances who can't mind their own business.
With his friends, he kind of gets it. When Mamá died, most of the kids in his class had given him a fairly wide berth. At the time, he thought everyone had abandoned him; now he understands that they just didn't know what to say. But Grace was different: the day she accidentally found him sobbing in the supply closet during recess, instead of hurrying in the opposite direction, she'd taken his hand and said, "It's okay to cry, you know. I still miss my Mama, too, but it gets better. I promise."
The Zimmers came into his life six months later, when their art teacher, Ms. Ryder, had unknowingly instructed them to make a Mothers' Day card. Nick immediately burst into tears and fled the room, with Ava close behind him. That day, Henry was the one to offer support, and when Nick finally stopped crying, Ava invited Henry over to play on their trampoline.
When Miss Blanchard first introduced their fourth grade class to The Queen and the Saviour, everyone enjoyed the books, but for a few of them, the story of Marisol Mendez became something of an obsession, and even without being able to articulate it at the time, Henry knew it wasn't random. Their role-play sessions at recess included Gabriella, whose last name is actually Mendez; Cristina and Rosa Santos, who were in fifth and third grade, respectively, and probably the only Dominican kids within a fifty mile radius; Charlie Lawrence, who used to be called Charlotte; and of course, Henry, Grace, Ava, and Nick: the kids with only one parent.
They didn't just love Marisol; they needed Marisol, and in some strange way, they need Emma, too. So, when Grace starts asking his mom all these questions about true love, and Ava makes a point of showing up at his house whenever Emma's around to pepper her with questions about bounty hunting and the merits of vintage leather jackets, and Nick starts referring to them as “Gin and Sal,” he doesn't complain. They want his mom to be happy as much as he does.
He's not so sympathetic to the rest of the world, to the people who'd been afraid to talk to him when he used to cry in class and his mom could barely remember how to cook and do the laundry or sign permission slips but who now, apparently, have no qualms about asking him incredibly personal questions.
“So, when your mom and her girlfriend go on dates, which one pays? Is one of them, like, the boy?” a kid who used to push Charlie down the stairs asks him one day.
“Don't make it weird,” Henry mutters, rolling his eyes.
Another classmate decides to inform him, “My parents said that all gay people are sinners.”
“Whatever.” (Then he giggles to himself, because, well, the "Sinners" are definitely pretty gay. His mom doesn't find the joke quite as funny as he does, though.)
The craziest is when a disheveled man with gray hair and a huge pot-belly -- someone he's seen around town but he's definitely never spoken to before -- approaches him when he's at GameStop with Ava and Nick to tell him, very stiffly, that he finds Regina attractive, and if she ever decides to give up the lesbian thing, she should give him a call. Ava howls with laughter, and Mr. Zimmer takes the guy into the parking lot to “have a word with him.” The red-faced clerk gives Henry a free lollipop.
When Mr. Zimmer calls to tell his mom what happened (insisting that she needs to know, despite Henry’s vehement arguments against it), she's in the process of lighting a candle on the dinner table -- they sometimes have candles at dinner now -- and she flies into the biggest rage Henry's ever seen. For a moment, he's afraid she's going to set the whole house on fire. Emma manages to calm her down, though. She's good at that sort of thing.
He's thankful Emma's around.
But people are still making it weird.
Miss Blanchard is awfully worried about the whole thing. “Henry, I want you to know that even though your mother and my roommate are dating, it won't compromise the professionalism of our student-teacher relationship, and if there are any problems at home, I hope you won't hesitate to come to me for help.”
Henry just stares. He understands the words themselves, but he still can't figure out what she means.
“Whatever happens between your mom and Emma, I don't want you to think you can't talk to me as your teacher anymore,” she clarifies, her hands fidgeting with the tiny bird sculpture on her desk.
“Don't make it weird, Miss Blanchard,” he says, groaning.
At his weekly therapy session, Dr. Hopper brings it up first. “How are you handling your mom's new relationship?” he asks, making a moment of awkward silence even more awkward.
Shrugging one shoulder, Henry replies, “What's there to handle? My mom's happy. Emma's nice.” He wonders how Dr. Hopper had even found out about Emma. Had his mom called to bring it up? Is she going to therapy again? Are psychologists even allowed to talk about stuff like that?
Hopper clears his throat and says, “It's just... I know that sometimes, when parents start dating again, kids worry that the new significant other is trying to replace—”
“No,” Henry interrupts. “Don't make it weird.”
The idea of Emma trying to replace Mamá is completely ridiculous. Even if Mamá wasn't irreplaceable, Emma hasn't given any indication that she wants to be more than a cool adult playmate to Henry. She's at their house a lot, and she sometimes makes him food and helps with his homework, but in a friend way, not a mom way. She likes the same superheroes that he does. It’s comfortable.
Mom sometimes jokes that dating Emma (or “spending time with Emma,” as she’s more likely to call it) is like having another child around, but anyone can see it's been good for her. She smiles more; she talks more. She lets Emma convince her to eat pizza for dinner and leave the house and make funny faces for selfies.
But then Mom, like all the others, decides to make it weird, lingering in his room one night after tucking him in, her fingers twisted in the chain around her neck where she wears Mamá's ring. “Henry, is this... is this okay with you?” she asks softly.
“What?” he demands, sleepiness making his brain sluggish.
She falters for a moment, chewing at her lower lip, before explaining in a rush, “It's just that Emma's been around a lot lately, and it seems like you enjoy spending time with her, but I know this is a big change, and you're used to it being just the two of us, and if it's too much, too soon, I can—”
“No, I like having her around,” he jumps to reassure her. “She's cool. You're happier when she's here.”
Mom's face falls, and in the moonlight shining through the window, her eyes glimmer with tears as her lips start to tremble. “Henry, don't think--it's not that I wasn't happy when it was only the two of us. I love you. Please don't think you—”
“Mom, don't make it weird,” he says, sighing. “I know you love me. That doesn't mean you were happy.”
“But I don't want you to think—even if Emma wasn't here, if this doesn't work out, you and me... we'd still be enough.”
Henry rolls his eyes and tells her what he assumes she wants to hear. “Of course we'd be enough, but it's fun when Emma's here.”
“It is,” she agrees, her shoulders slumping in relief as she exhales. A few stray tears trickle down her cheeks, but he makes a point to ignore them. They're happy tears, anyway.
***
The first time Henry saw either of his mothers cry, he was four and his abuela had just died. He had only met her once before, but they'd taken him to the funeral anyway. It was his first time on an airplane, and he wasn't sure whether he was more terrified of flying or the fact that Mamá was crying uncontrollably and wouldn't stop.
“¿Qué pasa?” he kept asking Mom. “¿Por qué está triste?”
She'd just sighed and whispered, “Oh, Henry,” unable to respond.
(He didn't figure out until quite a bit later that, as much as she tried to pretend for his and Mamá's sake, Mom was much more comfortable speaking English. Spanish was hard for her: she could never find the right words and then she'd get frustrated with herself for not knowing and furious at her parents for not teaching her, but Mamá would always squeeze her hand and whisper the right words in her ear. When Mamá died, she stopped trying to find the words altogether.)
When she finally explained to him that Mamá was sad because her mother died and that meant she could never see her again, he had crawled out of his seat and onto her lap and told her that she and Mamá would just have to live forever, then, because if he never got to see them again then he would die, too, of loneliness. She'd whispered, “Oh, Henry,” again and held him tight against her chest with his head tucked under her chin, and he felt teardrops on the top of his head and wriggled out of her embrace so he could try to wipe them away.
Mamá never had a problem with Henry seeing her cry, not that she cried particularly often. “Never try to hide your emotions,” she always told him. “Good or bad, we always want to share them with you.” Everything with Mamá was easy and honest, at least until the brain tumors ruined everything; even as a little kid, he felt like he understood her.
Mom was different. Mom is different.
Mom is another emotion every minute, always hiding, always layered. Mamá once said that Mom was like the human incarnation of a fire: a flame that shifts from red to yellow to blue and sometimes burns all three: protective and tender and fierce all at the same time. She can be warm and comfortable like a woodstove in winter or powerful and terrifying like a wildfire.
When Mamá died, it seemed like the flame that was Mom had been extinguished altogether. Now, two years later, Henry thinks he's starting to see sparks again, tentative but still bright.
After Mamá died, Mom started locking herself in her study. She said she was doing work, but he would stand by the door and hear her crying and occasionally breaking things. Back then, he wondered why she always lied, and why she wouldn't let him in. If she let him in, he thought, he could help make it better.
Now, he knows it's not that simple, but she’s started to crack open the metaphorical door, and in tentative fits and starts, they're trying to make it better together.
***
“But what does a bounty hunter do?” Ava persists, hovering around Emma's elbow while she stirs the pot of chili on the stove. Emma's not exactly a gourmet chef, but there are a few things she can make really well: macaroni, omelets, grilled cheese, and chili. Even though none of the options are very healthy, Mom still loves it when Emma makes dinner (and Henry's certainly not complaining).
“I already told you, we track down criminals who jumped bail,” says Emma, whose patience is obviously wearing thin. Her fondness for Henry notwithstanding, she’s really not much of a kid person.
“But how?”
Emma shrugs, handing Henry a spoonful of chili to taste. “Add more pepper,” he directs.
“Damn, you and your mom and your red pepper flakes,” she complains, but she dutifully adds another tablespoon. Turning back to Ava, she explains, “Lots of ways. Sometimes we ask their friends where they might hide; sometimes we go door-to-door looking for information; sometimes we trick them into revealing themselves.”
“How do you trick them?” Ava demands. Emma shrugs again.
“Depends on the perp.”
“Perp means bad guy,” Henry smugly informs her. “It's short for perpetrator.”
Ava rolls her eyes and ignores him in favor of Emma. “Are a lot of women bounty hunters?” she asks.
“Not really,” Emma replies, “but there should be more. There are definitely a few advantages to having a woman on the team, you know? I mean, we can do everything the guys do, and we can lure the perp out of hiding with a fake account on a dating website.”
“What do you mean?”
“She means that the bad guy thinks she's pretty, so she can trick him into going out with her and then arrest him,” Henry explains.
Ava looks horrified. “But...but you can't! You're going out with Ms. Mills!”
“Yeah, kid, I know,” Emma says, clearly holding back a laugh. “I’m not talking about going on real dates with those guys.”
“Dates? Guys? Does anyone want to explain this to me?” Mom says with mock sternness as she walks through the front door. Kicking off her heels, she immediately pulls Henry into a tight hug. “Sorry I'm late,” she murmurs, “our computer system broke down,” and Henry just shrugs and lets her keep her arms around him as long as she wants to because Dr. Hopper says that's a good thing (and really, he doesn't mind the hugging so much these days). “Did you have a good day at school?” she asks when she finally lets him go.
“It was alright,” he replies, avoiding any details because his mom's intense dislike of Miss Blanchard is one of the few sources of unease in her relationship with Emma. “I’ll tell you at bedtime.”
Mom gives him a knowing smirk and remarks, “And what's this delicious smell?”
“Well, you know, you were running late, so I thought I'd whip up some chili,” Emma mumbles, staring down at her feet as she shifts her weight from side to side. Henry rolls his eyes, wondering why this conversation is even necessary when they've been texting each other all afternoon and it's not like Mom can't smell the chili.
He considers complaining about their incredibly lame attempt at flirting, but then Emma offers Mom a spoonful and Mom deems it perfect and rocks up onto her toes to kiss Emma's cheek, and it feels so much like family that he forgets about everything else.
***
Henry checks the Captain America alarm clock on his bedside table — a birthday gift from Emma that he assumes Mom told her to buy — and furrows his brow. Mom hasn’t tried to enforce “bedtime” for a few years, but she always comes to tuck him in by 8:45. It’s one of their rituals. When Mamá died, Mom started clinging to rituals like they were some kind of lifeline. She’s loosened up a bit since Marisol Mendez (and then Emma Swan) came into her life, but it’s not like her to be half an hour late.
He hops out of bed and tiptoes down the stairs, more out of habit than an actual desire to sneak around. The door to the study is closed, which doesn’t surprise him. Apart from the time she spends reading to Henry and cooking, it’s basically the only room in the house she uses. Not coincidentally, it’s also the only room in the house that has none of Mamá’s stuff in it. He leans in to listen at the door, expecting to hear either the clack of computer keys or the scratch of pen on paper. (He can’t deny that he still thinks this whole fanfiction thing is a little weird, but at least it’s weird in a fun way.)
He hears neither; instead, he hears the sound of poorly muffled sobs, and his heart sinks to the pit of his stomach. He’d thought they were past this.
There's no response when he knocks on the door, as expected, but he decides it's worth a shot. Drawing in a deep breath, he jiggles the handle and is shocked to find that it's open. “Mom?” he calls, cautiously poking his head in. She's at her desk, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders heaving. She doesn't respond, so he shouts a little louder. “Mom!”
“Henry?” her head jerks up and she gapes at him, mortified, trying frantically to wipe the tear tracks from her cheeks. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to bed.”
“I—I was,” he stammers, backing away. “I didn't mean—I’m sorry for barging in, but the door was unlocked, and I... I'm sorry, Mom.”
Her face immediately softening, she beckons him to join her. “It's fine, my little prince,”” she coos, “you're always welcome in here.”
Her frequent use of the door lock suggests otherwise, but Henry's not about to start an argument. “I heard you crying. Are you okay? Did something happen?”
Though her lips are still trembling, she offers him an almost sheepish smile and replies, “Not in real life, anyway.”
Oh.
Oh.
“What fic are you reading?” he asks, curious. “Did Emma update yet?”
“No, she's still at work, and... well, actually, I was writing.” She checks her watch and frowns. “I’m so sorry I lost track of time.”
“‘Shadowed Heart?’” She still hasn't given him an answer on whether he can read it. He's starting to think she's just pretending he never asked.
She nods. “Last chapter.”
Well, that makes no sense. “Is it not a happy ending?” he guesses, though he doubts that would be the case. As much of a pessimist as his mom claims to be, she's a bigger sucker for happy endings than anyone he's met, especially when it comes to Gin and Sal. There's absolutely no way the fic she's spent months on is going to end in despair.
“It's a happy ending,” she says, letting out a long sigh. “It’s hard.”
He arches an eyebrow at her, not fully understanding. “Writing is hard?”
Mom sighs, pushes herself up slowly up from her desk, walks over to the couch, and motions for him to come sit by her. “Henry,” she says quietly, “I owe you an explanation. This story, the reason I didn't want you to read it…”
The tears start to fall again, but Henry wills himself to stay silent, knowing he has to wait her out. “It's difficult to write about someone waking up from a coma," she finally wheezes, "when all you can remember is someone who didn’t.”
Henry doesn't cry -- he can't -- but he puts on a good show of biting his lower lip and burying his face in her shoulder, letting her pretend to comfort him until she manages to calm herself down. When her sobs eventually quiet, Henry wriggles out of the embrace and pats her shoulder. “That's the best thing about writing, though, isn't it?” he asks. “You can make your own happy ending, even if it isn't real.”
“It is,” she replies with a watery smile. “I guess that means I'd better get to work, then.”
“Yeah, people are waiting for the update. Miss Blanchard even said she'd throw us a class party,” Henry jokes.
Rolling her eyes, Regina points upwards and orders him, “Find something happy for us to read tonight. I'll be up in five minutes.”
***
Henry’s favorite nights are when Emma takes him and Mom out to dinner – well, technically, sometimes it’s Mom who’s “taking them out,” since there’s usually an epic battle for the check, but Emma is the one who chooses the restaurant and whisks (sometimes drags) Mom out of the house. Meanwhile, Mom whines that there’ll probably be a long wait and the restaurant will be too loud and crowded and she can probably cook the same thing at home for less money, but she always has a good time once they’re out.
Even if it’s just Shake Shack, Henry always puts on his nice blazer, the one that’s getting a little too short in the arms, combs his hair, and jumps to hold the door for everyone, because Mom can’t bar him from eating dessert if the waitstaff is so charmed that they give it to him for free. Mostly, he just basks in the fact that they’re together, they’re out of the house, and Mom is wearing her real smile instead of the fake one she used for so long.
It sometimes occurs to him that he’s a third wheel on Mom and Emma’s dates, not that they’ve ever treated him that way. In fact, the first few times they’d been in public together without books or laptop screens in front of them, they’d both paid more attention to him than to each other, Emma inordinately interested in fourth grade social studies lessons and Mom seemingly unable to tell a single story without his input. Then, once they’d run out of questions to ask him, they usually defaulted to the topic of Marisol Mendez, apparently their only safe shared interest.
“Maybe you and Emma could go out on a date by yourselves one night,” he’d suggested on more than one occasion, which invariably sent Mom into a panic, assuming he didn’t want to spend time with Emma anymore and that she’d have to call off the entire relationship, no matter how much he tried to convince her otherwise. Eventually, he stopped bringing it up. It’s not like he minded the attention, and anyway, after a while, they stopped needing him to facilitate every single conversation.
In some way or another, though, it always comes back to the books.
“Is that part of the reason you related to Marisol?” Emma asks him the night Mom told her the story of his adoption. “Because she’s adopted, too?”
“Um...maybe?” Henry replies, caught off-guard; beside him, he hears Mom suck in a sharp breath. “I mean, sort of, I guess, but I couldn’t really relate to her all the time. Like when she was all weird about finding her birth mother. I was glad when she remembered Sal was her actual mom.”
Emma chuckles nervously, as if she realizes she’s suddenly made things very awkward. “Probably good that you never felt the urge, right? Means your parents did a good job.”
He can almost feel the tension leaving Mom’s shoulders, even if he doesn’t see her. “Yeah,” he agrees, “they did. And it wasn’t like Marisol’s situation at all.”
“You mean you didn’t need your birth mom to undo some huge, curse?” Emma jokes.
“Right. And I always knew I was adopted. It wasn’t, like, some big surprise one day.”
“Would have been hard to keep it a secret once he learned the basics of human biology,” Mom remarks drily, and Henry leans in just close enough that their shoulders touch. “And, of course, it was much more pleasant to have the conversation ourselves than to allow some homophobic asshole off the street to do the honors for us.”
“What about you?” Henry asks. Emma’s face pales, and it suddenly feels like all the air has been sucked out of the restaurant. Henry wonders what he did wrong.
“What do you mean?” she asks, fidgeting with her napkin ring.
“Um...I thought you were adopted, too,” he fumbles. “So I was just wondering if your parents, y’know, told you...”
Emma locks eyes with his mom, who gives a one-shouldered shrug and squeezes Henry’s hand. “Actually, kid, I wasn’t adopted,” Emma says slowly, her gaze focused on a random point in the distance. “I—well, I spent my life in the foster system. So I didn’t really have parents.”
“Oh,” Henry murmurs. And then he remembers: “Like Gin?”
“Yeah, sort of like Gin.” Emma forces a smile. “I don’t think my situation was that bad, though. None of my foster families hurt me, they just... they just didn’t keep me.” She looks down, and continues, “One of them almost did, actually, but then they got pregnant with their own kid, and I guess they only wanted one.”
Mom makes another loud gasping noise, and when Henry turns to look at her, her eyes are ablaze with fury. Her grip on Henry’s hand tightens. “But, you know, it’s fine,” Emma says, with a wobbly laugh that indicates it most certainly isn’t fine. “I turned out okay. In the end, I made my own family, so I guess it all worked out.”
Unsure of what to say, Henry rests his head on Mom’s shoulder and waits for her to reply. “Chosen families are the best kind,” she agrees, reaching across with the hand that isn’t holding Henry’s to intertwine her fingers with Emma’s, and Henry wonders if she means what he thinks she does.
***
“Why did you and Mamá decide to adopt me?” he asks (and then almost immediately regrets it) when Mom comes to tuck him into bed that night.
She stops cold, nearly dropping the glass of wine in her hand. “Excuse me?” she demands, her voice nearly an octave higher than normal. Henry cringes. He shouldn't have asked: he should have known she wasn't ready, should have known it would ruin everything. Mom's hands tremble as she sets her wine glass on his desk and carefully lowers herself onto the edge of his bed. “Did someone say something to you?” she asks shakily. “At school, or…”
“No, nothing like that!” he reassures her. “It's nothing; I just... I don't know. What Emma said, about that family that sent her back because they were having their own kid, I just thought…”
His voice trails off, and Mom nods, apparently mollified by the explanation. “You thought we would have wanted our own kid?” she asks gently. “Henry, you are our own kid.”
“Yeah, but…” He inches a bit closer to her and mumbles, “I thought maybe you would have wanted a kid who looked the same as you, you know? Like Sal adopted Marisol and—and you ended up with me instead.”
“Henry,” she gasps, leaning over to pull him into her arms, “it wasn't like that at all! We chose you.”
Henry groans and wriggles out of her grasp. “I’m not a baby anymore,” he complains. “I know you love me, but I hear people say stuff, and I just meant, like, does it ever bother you that I’m not... you know, Latino?”
Her face twitches as she struggles against herself, until she finally admits, “Sometimes.” He nods, figuring that was the case. “When people say those things, I can't deny that it hurts, but Henry, that has nothing to do with you. The outside world... well, it is what it is, but we’re a family, and our love for each other is more important than race or DNA or any of those other details.”
“I know,” he says quietly. Then, figuring she hasn't run away yet and he might as well try, he asks, “Did you ever think about it, though? Before you had me?”
Mom sighs as she scoots herself farther onto the bed, leaning against the backboard beside Henry. “We thought about a lot of things,” she tells him. “Mostly, we thought about how much we wanted a baby. It wasn't easy: not every agency would adopt to same-sex couples, and even if they did, it's a long and expensive process for everyone. There were forms and tests and fees, and by the time they told us they had a child for us, race was the last thing on our minds. And then we got you, and you were ours, and we were yours.” She smiles at the memory, tears glistening in her eyes. “The first time I held you was the happiest moment of my life. You were perfect. You are perfect,” she corrects.
Henry leans in and rests his head on her chest, where he can feel her heart beat against him. “You're perfect, too,” he says, tracing his thumb along the back of her hand as it caresses his cheek. It's not often that he lets her get this close, he realizes, a pang of guilt in his stomach. Maybe if he let her snuggle more, she wouldn't have been so sad for so long.
Her voice cracks as she whispers, “Oh, Henry,” and he wraps his arms around her waist, basking in her warmth. He can feel her breath catch in her throat, and then she relaxes, resting a damp cheek on the top of his head. She gently draws the outline of a heart on his cheek with the tip of her finger, the way she used to when he was little and more amenable to cuddling, and then she tells him, “In the beginning, we planned to adopt several children. We wanted a big family.” With a much darker expression, she mutters, “Unlike Emma’s supposed parents.”
“What happened?” he asks. He doesn't remember her ever mentioning more kids. Obviously, it didn't pan out, unless he has a whole bunch of invisible siblings no one's ever told him about.
His mom sighs, nuzzling the top of his head for a moment before replying, “Reality happened. It took years for us to get you, and then once we finally had you, we wanted to enjoy our baby boy without the stress of starting the adoption process all over again.” She pauses, takes a deep breath. He can tell there's something she wants to say, something she can't quite find the words for. He tries to stay as still as he possibly can, worried that if he interrupts, even by breathing too loudly, he'll scare her away. Finally, she says, “Actually, we did start the process again, once you had started school. We got a call the summer before you started second grade. A little girl. Two years old. Her name was Camila. She was beautiful.”
He doesn't ask what happened. He doesn't need to. The summer before second grade is when they found Mamá's first tumor.
“Did—did they find another family for her?” he stammers, feeling dangerously close to tears. He almost had a sister.
He wonders what things would be like with another kid in the family. She'd be five now, probably, or maybe even six. She'd be learning how to read. He would have had someone to share his favorite books with. More than that, he would have had someone to share the hard times with. They could have been there for each other; it might have been easier to handle Mamá's death and Mom’s subsequent depression with a little sister by his side.
But then he thinks about a two year old being shuttled back and forth to the hospital for Mamá's chemo, and he thinks about Mom barely having the energy to take care of him, let alone a toddler, and he realizes it would never have worked out.
Mom confirms, “They did. She has two wonderful parents who were ecstatic to welcome her into their family, and who, I assume, would never dream of sending her back.”
“Do you ever wish…”
He stops, unsure how to finish his sentence. He often wonders what his mom wishes, what's on her mind when she's crying in her study, what she regrets. There's so much of her that's still a mystery to him, which is probably the way she wants it to be. Still, it might be nice to have a clue once in a while.
“I wish a lot of things, Henry,” she says with a hollow laugh, seeming to understand the question even if he hadn't been able to voice it, "but I've learned over the years that wishes rarely come true. The best you can do is be happy with whatever fate hands you."
“And are you happy?” he wants to ask, but he doesn't know if he wants her to answer.
As if she can sense his thoughts, Mom holds him a little tighter and whispers, “I’m just forever grateful that fate decided to give me you.”