TERMS OF THE HEART
"Priya and Daniel. Sofia and Griffith, apparently on their own path toward exactly this. Eleanor, softening more every time I see her. I don't think I properly understood, watching you sign that contract all those months ago, exactly how much genuine connection would eventually grow from something that started so purely transactional."
"Neither did I," I admitted. "I think that's rather the whole lesson of this entire year, actually. That genuine connection doesn't always announce itself clearly from the very beginning. Sometimes it grows quietly, in the spaces between careful negotiation and desperate necessity, until you look up one day and realise you've built an entire family you never a