“Bossy,” Hannah said, laughing.
“Correct!”
Skylar shrieked when Hannah came down.
The girls arranged themselves cross-legged on the rug. Hannah started sorting through the gifts. I leaned against the doorframe and let myself smile.
For 13 years, I’d raised that girl mostly alone, ever since we lost Luke. Her father had walked out long before that, when Luke was still a teenager, and Hannah was barely more than a toddler.
I’d stopped waiting for him to return a long time ago.
Once, when Hannah was maybe nine, she’d asked me about him.
“Did he love us, Mom?”
“I think he loved you the best way he knew how, baby. It just wasn’t enough. That’s on him, not on you.”
She’d nodded as if she were filing it away and had never asked again. I had an old wedding photo tucked in the back of my sock drawer that she’d never seen. Some days, I forgot it was there.
