“Mom,” she asked, very quietly, her eyes still on the tag.

“Am I really just Dad’s girl?”

I want you to sit with that question for a moment, the way I had to, because of everything it contained.

Some questions a child asks can be waved away with a quick, easy reassurance.

Others open a window straight down into how deeply a child has been hurt, how thoroughly a message has gotten inside them, and this was the second kind.

She was not asking about a candle.