My four-year-old daughter, Emma, stood completely still for a moment—then suddenly rushed toward the pastor, shouting something that brought the entire room into stunned silence.

Miriam insisted that I needed to rest.

She told me that she would prepare the last bottles because “that’s what grandmothers were for, to support us when modern mothers overdid it.”

I went up with back pain, dark circles under my eyes, and the tepid defeat of an exhausted motherhood.

Trevor had stayed downstairs for a while with his mother, talking about some family accounts and a roof repair that now seemed to me like an absurd memory from another existence.

I confided in you.