When we married, he did not “become a stepfather,” a word he has never once used; he simply became her dad, the way you become anything real, by doing the ten thousand small unglamorous things nobody sees.

So understand that when Gene called my daughter Brandon’s girl as an insult, she was, without meaning to, naming the one thing Brandon was proudest of in his entire life.

She thought she was drawing a line to exclude Holly.

She had no idea she was describing the thing my husband would have tattooed over his heart.

Brandon’s girl.

Yes.

Exactly.