Two Weeks After Our Baby Died, My 8-Year-Old Whispered, “Mom, She Isn’t Gone—I Saw What Daddy Did at the Hospital”

I stopped her.

“You do not have to be grateful every minute because Melanie died.”

She stared.

“Really?”

“Really.”

I did not want my daughter’s death to turn another mother into someone afraid to dislike 3 a.m. feedings.

Clara deserved an ordinary mother.

Melanie’s memory did not need constant solemnity.

PART 36 — THE PHOTO OF LUCAS HOLDING MELANIE

I could not look at it for almost two months.