Maggie looked at me and was about to say something but Mama stepped in and said, “You know, when a baby is born, Mr. Jim, the families come over and stay to help everybody out, but being that you and Maggie gots no family, then me and Myra we gonna step in and be your new family for you and Maggie and Layla.”

I looked over at Maggie and there were tears welling in her eyes.

Trying to understand what I was hearing and now feeling, suddenly in a flash, I got it—both Maggie and I were orphans. Maggie since birth practically, and I was an only and adopted child who came late in my parents’ life, and they both passed before I had even met Maggie.

Somehow this had totally escaped me. I never realized how alone we both felt now that Layla had come, because in some strange way we had expected just the opposite. But Mama was right, this isn’t a two-person job, this is something that families do. They rally around a new baby and mother and father. Sure, we had friends, but after a few visits and calls from friends and coworkers, we were left totally alone. And now my need to return to work, well, no wonder Maggie reacted the way she did.