too tired or too distracted. I never really minded. Not at first. Tessa was the middle child, the performer, the attention magnet. Rachel, the youngest, was the baby; she got away with everything. I was the one who cleaned up after everyone else.

When I got older and became a mom myself, that dynamic didn’t really change. I adopted my daughter, Maya, when she was three years old. She had these big, serious eyes and this quiet way of observing the world, like she didn’t trust it yet. I remember the first time she called me