legal guardianship.
Kayla did not fight it.
She barely responded.
I wish I could say I was surprised.
I wasn’t.
I took extra shifts when I could.
Later, I found additional work.
Money was tight, but the girls never knew how many times I stood in the grocery aisle doing calculations in my head before putting something back.
They didn’t know that I sometimes wore shoes until the soles were nearly smooth because dance classes or field trips came first.
That wasn’t martyrdom.
It was parenting.
I did what parents do.
I packed lunches before the sun came up.
I sat through school concerts where twenty children played recorders badly enough to frighten wildlife.
I helped build science projects.
I learned the names of their friends.
I knew which teachers they loved and which subjects made them anxious.
When Jennifer played a tree in her second-grade class production, I rearranged
