Brielle came to say goodnight and asked whether being divorced meant we weren’t a family anymore.

I told her families could change shape without losing the care that made them matter.

She nodded and climbed into bed, holding a dinosaur party favor against her pillow.

PART 26

The Questions I Used to Avoid

One evening I opened a folder of my oldest editing assignments.

There were medical reports covered in my margin notes, invoices carefully dated, and messages from clients thanking me for catching errors before publication.

I had worked when the children were asleep and sometimes while they napped beside me.