I thought about that night.
Seven plates.
No place for me.
No place for Wren.
Then I remembered the first message my father sent after she was born.
Is she healthy?
Are you?
“Because you asked.”
He frowned slightly.
“You were the only person who asked whether I was okay too.”
My voice tightened.
“Not just the baby.”
“Me.”
Dad looked at me for a long time.
“It took me sixteen years to learn how to ask.”
He looked down at Wren.
“I’m glad I finally got it right once.”
My hospital bracelet now sits in a drawer in Wren’s room at my father’s house.
Beside the yellow blanket.
Beside the old brass key.
Simone’s room.
Dad gave it back to me.
“It’s always your room,” he said. “Use it whenever you want. Or don’t. Your choice.”
Wren and I visit on Tuesdays.
We sit in the window seat and look over my mother’s rose garden.
