My daughter left the last slice of cake because she said I’d had the longest day

Dear Delyara, She said it so plainly, as if it were obvious that tiredness should come with cake. I nearly laughed and cried at the same time. Not because the cake was extraordinary, but because being considered in such a simple, instinctive way felt like water in the right place. Children can be loud, demanding, impossible, hilarious, selfish, tender, and startlingly generous all in the same day. Yesterday she was generous, and it reached deeper than she knew. I ate the cake slowly. It tasted like being remembered.