families and all the different ways they can be made. I explained that love doesn’t depend on DNA and that being a parent is about showing up again and again: tying laces, catching tears, slicing fruit into goofy faces, banishing monsters from under the bed, sitting beside her when dreams turn frightening.
One night, during our usual bedtime ritual, she curled into my side with her hair still damp from the bath. She traced little shapes on my arm with her finger. Then she whispered, so quietly it almost dissolved
