The man I once was might have gone alone because he thought caution was weakness.

The father I was becoming knew Maya needed me to come home after every difficult conversation.

The night before, I showed Maya an old photograph of Clara standing in a garden.

I had kept it tucked inside a book for years.

Maya studied the woman’s smile.

“She has your eyebrows,” she said.

“She was my mother.”

“Did she make pancakes?”