Lin mediating.

I learned how exhausting Elena’s first years with Willa had been.

She had worked part-time repairing books, taken night commissions, and accepted help from Rose when childcare fell through.

There were months when she worried about rent and weeks when Willa had repeated ear infections.

Elena did not tell me these things to collect sympathy.

She told me so that I would understand what I’d been absent from.

She also described good memories: the first time Willa laughed until she hiccuped, the day she named the stuffed rabbit after a cartoon captain, her first snowfall, and the morning she announced that her mother’s freckles were constellations.