Some child in your life has already asked you once, in a small way, and you missed it.
Go back. This week. Ask them a real question in a car, where nobody has to look at anybody, and then be quiet long enough that the silence gets uncomfortable.
The quiet is the whole trick. I learned it too late.
There Is One More Thing and Then I’m Done
Emma is ten now. She lives with me. She has lived with me for two years and three months and the adoption — and it was an adoption, both parents’ rights were terminated, and it took eleven months and four court dates — was finalized in February.
Her last name is Miller. She picked that. Nobody asked her to.
Her room is the one that was Laura’s, which we repainted a color she chose called Seafoam and which I think is a terrible color and which I will never change.
