didn’t disappear simply because you kept going.
I was terrified almost every day.
Terrified one of them would get sick.
Terrified I would fail them.
Terrified that someday someone would decide I wasn’t enough.
But fear had never stopped people from needing me before.
So I stayed.
At night, before sleeping, I checked three cribs.
Always three.
Eventually, bottles became sippy cups.
Diapers became backpacks.
Cribs became beds.
Then suddenly I was sitting through school concerts, parent conferences, braces appointments, stomach bugs, soccer games, broken hearts, and grocery bills large enough to frighten grown men.
June broke her arm at nine.
Claire had pneumonia at twelve.
Ava once called me crying from a sleepover because she was homesick but didn’t want her sisters to know.
Through all of it, Vanessa never called.
Not once.
No birthday cards.
No Christmas presents.
No letter asking whether the girls were healthy.
Nothing.
At
