The soft crinkle of the plastic, backed training pants was the first sound to greet him as he shuffled into the nursery. It was a sound that signified something important, a deliberate stepping out of a zone and into another, softer, simpler, and utterly defined by her care. Mommy had laid everything out on the changing table: a pair of powder, blue short-alls made of a thick, quilted cotton that promised warmth, a matching bib embroidered with a little rocking horse, and a pacifier clipped to a cord of pastel beads. “There’s […]