I reached across the table.
“You never have to pretend with me.”
We lit the candles.
The flames reflected in her eyes.
She closed them and made a wish.
Then she blew them out.
I watched the smoke curl toward the ceiling.
For years, I’d imagined what my daughter might have wished for at five.
At ten.
At sixteen.
I’d imagined birthdays that never happened.
But now she was here.
A living, breathing woman sitting at my kitchen table.
I had missed her first steps.
Her first words.
Her school plays.
Her graduation.
I couldn’t buy those moments back.
No amount of money could.
But there were thousands of ordinary moments still ahead of us.
Vanessa cut the cake.
Then she paused.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
“Anything.”
She looked suddenly shy.
“Would it be strange if I called you Mom sometimes?”
