That evening, after Chloe fell asleep, Camilla and I sat on the balcony overlooking the city.

She told me about a tiny apartment in Oregon where she’d once painted the walls yellow because she couldn’t bear another gray winter.

I told her about Chloe’s first lost tooth, when she’d insisted the tooth fairy needed a signed receipt.

We laughed, then cried, then sat quietly while the lights came on in neighboring buildings.

It was not the life we’d planned.

But it was a life we could finally tell the truth about.