“Mom?” she said softly.

“Who’s Julian?” She had seen the name, I realized, written somewhere among the things I had set out, or perhaps I had said it aloud without noticing.

Either way, the question was out, and my daughter was looking up at me, waiting.

I turned to her, and for one brief moment the whole broken room fell away and there was only my child and the answer she deserved.

How do you tell a ten-year-old that the name she has just spoken belongs to the father she never met?