She laughed again, truly this time. “He is. And he’s also a menace at 3 a.m.”

“My boys were terrors and angels, sometimes in the same minute,” I said. “They’re taller than me now. They steal my socks and insist it’s because I ‘buy better socks’ and not because they have a compulsion.”

“How did you do it?” she asked, quiet. “Alone?”