Excerpt from Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Of course she had seen him almost every day, had hugged him, had rocked him to sleep, but it would be different now. It would forever be different and yet, hopefully, the same as ever. She wished, not for the first time, that she had someone with her, a partner. Then, immediately, she shook off that hope; she wanted this moment just for herself, as it had always been, no one but her.

The door opened and Roberto looked in, flashed a thumbs-up sign, and Izzy nodded in response. Roberto disappeared from view and, suddenly, there he was. A little boy stood in the doorway. Her little boy. Her son.

He walked into the room, already waving, already smiling, but then stopped short when he saw her.

"Izzy?" he said, his face curious and open.

"Hi, Cap," she said, the shock of seeing him standing before her, just the two of them, almost too much to process.

"You're my mom?" he asked, tentative, afraid to come too close to her, which broke her heart in the places it had always been broken.

"I am, sweetie," she said, smiling.

"You made me?" he asked, moving a little closer to her.

"We all made you," she said, a mantra of the group, but she then added, "but I made you the most."

"Mom," he said, a statement of fact. He waved to her again and she waved back.

"I'm your mom," Izzy said, another statement of fact, holding her breath.

"Good," he finally said, smiling, and he stepped into her arms and let her hug him for what felt like the first time.

"It is good," she said, this boy in her arms, the son she had given up and yet managed to keep, the child she had not wanted and yet could not love more than she did.

"We are a family," he said, and she knew that he meant everyone, the other children, the other parents, Dr. Grind, but she pretended that he meant only the two of them.

"We are a family," she responded, still hugging him so tightly, "we are the best family in the whole wide world."

From Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson. Copyright 2016 Kevin Wilson. Excerpted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.