My promise was that this would never happen again — that Lily’s limits would always be met by mine, that when she could no longer hold on, arms she trusted would already be reaching to take the weight.

That is what a parent is, I finally understood, sitting on that floor.

Not someone who removes all the weight from a child’s life.

Someone who guarantees that the child never has to discover, alone and afraid, that a weight is more than she can bear.

I had come one phone call away from failing at that.

I did not intend to come that close ever again.

Chapter 15 — The Divorce