The room went quiet when I placed the ultrasound photo on the coffee table. My husband, Aleric, looked at it, then at me, while his mother stood beside the bassinet holding the three-month-old baby he had brought into our Greenwich home only days earlier.

poor child was left without anyone. Aleric couldn’t bear the thought of him ending up in foster care, so he decided to take responsibility.”

I stared at the baby.

He wore a white onesie. His skin was fair, his eyelashes unusually long.

But it was his face that held me.

The eyebrows.

The shape of his jaw.

Something about him looked painfully familiar.

Aleric ended his call and approached me.

“I planned to explain tonight.”

“What exactly are you explaining?”

“My cousin died unexpectedly. The boy had nowhere to go.