Instead, he turned the first page around.
At the top, in his familiar handwriting, he had written three words:
WHAT WE OWE JUDY.
Below them were several lines.
An apology.
An acknowledgment that I had the right to choose where I lived.
A promise that childcare would be asked for, never assumed.
And, at the bottom, one sentence that made me look up at him.
We owe you the chance to be our mother and grandmother without making you earn your place.
I read it twice.
“You didn’t have to write all this.”
“Yes, I did,” Todd said. “I needed to see what we had done in black and white.”
For a moment, I thought that was the end of it.
Then Michelle took a folded envelope from her purse.
“There’s something else.”
She pushed it across the table.
Inside was a printed email from the daycare center. The subject line read: Withdrawal Request — Sadie and Eli.
