I used to think a child’s drawing could never hold real meaning — just scribbles and stick figures destined for the fridge. That was before my five-year-old daughter drew our family and added a boy who didn’t exist.
When I asked who he was, she smiled and said, “That’s my brother.”
I only have one child.
Nothing in my life prepared me for the way that sentence gutted me.
I’m thirty-six, married to Mark, and our daughter Anna is the center of our world. She’s bright, fearless, with a laugh that can melt tension from a room. Mark is the kind of father you only read about — patient, goofy, the type to let Anna paint his face in glitter just to make her laugh.
Our life wasn’t flashy, but it was warm, consistent, whole. Or so I thought.
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