Noah caught me staring.
“What?”
I smiled through tears.
“Nothing, sweetheart.”
He dried his hands.
Then smiled back at me.
“You’ve done enough.”
I shook my head.
“Noah—”
“It’s our turn now.”
For ten years, I had believed loving those five children meant carrying everything for them.
Every bill.
Every fear.
Every sacrifice.
Every loss.
Yesterday, on Noah’s eighteenth birthday, he taught me something Mara would probably have understood immediately.
Family is not one person carrying everyone else forever.
Eventually, the people you carried grow strong enough to turn around—
May you like
