because he didn’t want me to feel the empty space where you were supposed to be.
He did that every year.
For all six of us.”
She reached in again.
A stack of cards, bound with ribbon.
“Fifteen years of birthday cards,” Adele said. “Signed ‘Love, Mom,’ in Dad’s handwriting.
He got so good at forging your love that I didn’t find out until I was twelve.
I found him at the kitchen table at midnight, writing them, crying a little, so that six girls could wake up believing their mother remembered them.”
The hall was dead silent.
Maya’s smile had frozen on her face.
Adele kept going, lifting things out one at a time.
A program from a third-grade play. “You weren’t there. Dad was, front row, filming.”
A photo from a dance recital. “You weren’t there. Dad learned to do a French braid from a library book for
