Brooke pulled back.
“Who?”
I laughed through my tears.
“Your father.”
Lily looked confused for half a second.
Then she understood.
“No, Dad.”
She touched my face.
“You still don’t get it.”
I looked at her.
She smiled.
“When we say our father, we mean you.”
Three weeks later, I stood in my apartment holding a hammer.
On the wall beside the kitchen, I hung two frames.
The first contained Eric’s old letter.
The paper was yellow now.
The ink had faded.
I can’t raise them by myself.
Beside it, I hung the adoption decree.
For years, I thought that first piece of paper represented the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
Abandonment.
Responsibility.
A life I hadn’t planned.
Now I looked at the second frame.
Three daughters.
Twenty-two birthdays.
Hundreds of burnt breakfasts.
Hospital visits.
College tuition forms.
Bad haircuts.
Broken hearts.
Graduations.
