This time, the fear came with joy instead of panic. We’d done this before. We had supports. We had boundaries.
When we told Margaret, she sat down hard on our couch.
“Oh,” she whispered, then laughed, then cried in one messy breath. “Another baby.”
Lily clapped. “I’m getting a sibling!”
Margaret wiped her eyes and looked at me. “I want to help,” she said quickly. “But I want to do it the right way. Tell me what you need, and if you don’t need anything, tell me that too.”
I smiled. “Start with Saturday mornings,” I said. “If you want time with Lily, take her to the park so I can nap.”
Margaret nodded immediately, serious as if accepting a mission.
When our son, Jack, was born in spring, Margaret held him like he was made of possibility.
“He looks like David,” she whispered.
David smiled. “Poor kid.”
Margaret laughed, real and bright.
My mother stood beside her, hand resting on Margaret’s back for just a moment—two women who had once stood on opposite sides of an invisible wall, now holding it up together.
That summer, while Lily helped me rock Jack in the backyard, she looked up and asked, “Mom, do labels matter at all?”