dresses belong to your mother and to you.”
“Three little girls.”
“Three different times.”
“If I am lucky enough to meet yours, put her in whichever one fits.”
“Do not save them so carefully that nobody gets to live in them.”
“Clothes are meant to wrinkle.”
“Children are meant to stain things.”
“Love is not improved by keeping it untouched.”
I lowered the page.
That sentence hit me harder than anything else.
Because I had spent Lily’s first year afraid.
Not constantly.
But enough.
After losing a pregnancy at 14 weeks, I had treated joy like something that could be punished if I trusted it too much.
When Lily was born, I counted breaths.
I checked the monitor every ten minutes.
I woke Mark because I thought she felt too warm.
Then because she felt too cold.
I researched every rash.
Every sound.
Every strange diaper.
I had wanted her
