I tell her when I’m sad and why, in words a ten-year-old can hold.

I don’t paper over hard things with a bright voice the way I once papered over a marriage.

She is growing up believing, correctly, that the people who love her will tell her the truth, and I think that single belief is worth more than the house and the studio and every dollar the court moved back to my side of the ledger.

It is the one inheritance I am certain of.

Her father gave her a cautionary tale.

I would rather give her a floor she can trust.