So when our family went to Florida, and my daughter walked onto the beach wearing a two-piece swimsuit, I nearly cried.

I had not seen it coming.

She had packed the suit without telling me, and she had put it on in the hotel room without a word, and then she had simply walked out of the bathroom and toward the door, her birthmarks bare to the light for the first time in her life, her chin up, her hands shaking just slightly at her sides.

“Mom, I’m tired of hiding,” she said, forcing a nervous smile that was braver than any confident one could ever have been.