Caleb laughed again, and for a moment, I let myself absorb it all. My children were together in one place — loud, messy, crowded, ordinary, and ours.
Twelve years earlier, that word had almost vanished from my life.
Melissa, my ex-wife, left on a Thursday night. I could still hear the sound of her suitcase wheels rolling across the kitchen tile.
Caleb was six. Mila was five. Ethan and Lily, our twins, were three. Amy had barely learned to walk. Sophie was nine months old, asleep in a duck-print onesie I’d snapped crooked because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.continue reading …
