“I walked in to find Josh on his hands and knees, cleaning it up. His eyes were swollen, so I knew he’d been crying. I thought the kids would be okay with Ben for that hour. It was just one hour.” Thankfully, I’m all cried out. And I’m finding that saying all this out loud is really helping. “I helped him clean up but he barely said a word the whole time. He was just so… out of it. Even when I put him to bed, it was like he was looking through me.” I shiver with the weight of my failure. “I wanted to make Sienna proud. I wanted to be the best stand-in mother I could be for her kids. But…” My breath hitches up but I force myself to say it, the thing I’ve suspected for quite some time now but never dared utter aloud. “… I don’t think I’m a very good mother.”
It would have been the only gift
