Makayla's favorite snack is tortilla chips dipped in whipped cream. It's disgusting, but she'll beg me for it for eating her veggies, so you do what you do. She collects these pieces of sea glass, we go to the beach on Sunday mornings when I'm not working, and she's obsessed with them. My pockets are full of them, sometimes I think they're multiplying. Makayla's discovered that we have a freckle inside of the same toe on the same foot and decided that we can communicate as a result telepathically, so when she's at school in the middle of the day she sends me happy thoughts, and when I come home, I'm supposed to know what those happy thoughts are, which is hard. You were right about everything. I don't have a ton of money. I don't have a big house. Yes, Adam Ruzek, my ex-fiance, is moving in with us. I don't know how to explain that except that we're family, and yes, I almost died and went back to a job before I had to, but it was what I needed then, and it's what I want now. I'm good at my job, I help people, and I'm proud that my kid sees me doing that. I am a mess, and I make mistakes. Makayla, that's something that I've done really right. Theo, I get what you're trying to do, truly, I truly do, but what Makayla and I have you can't just make that up. It's real, she's my family, and I'm hers.

Kim