"Not your mother," I remind him. Maybe it's cruel. Maybe it's necessary. Sometimes things can be both. But the thing that he wanted, unquestionably, that I couldn't have managed to give him in a thousands years, was to be a parent who had made the choice to bring him into the world, and wanted him in spite of everything. A mentor wasn't enough. What child doesn't want to know his parents? Or believe that he or she was brought to complete another person's life?

"You couldn't have been so happy if you wanted... a parent. I wasn't enough of one for you."