All six of my girls come home for Sunday dinner now.
It’s chaos. It’s loud. There are always at least three arguments and one of them is always about the bathroom.
It’s the best thing I’ve ever built, and I built it out of double shifts and library books and birthday cards written at midnight.
I kept one of those cards, by the way.
The first one. Adele’s sixth birthday. “Love, Mom,” in my handwriting.
I don’t keep it out of sadness.
I keep it because it reminds me of the man I had to become — a father who loved his daughters so much he was willing to be their mother too, for as long as they needed it.
Adele framed it for me last Christmas.
Underneath the card, she’d added a small plaque.
It says: “The love was always real. We just found out who it came from.”
They
