On our wedding day, my stepdaughter Avery wore a winter hat with her dress. I didn’t ask why.
At the reception, she handed me a gift and took off her hat—her head was completely bald. “The treatment worked,” she said with a hopeful smile. Her gift was a charm bracelet, including a tiny bald doll. “You never treated me differently,” she whispered.
Later, we found out insurance wouldn’t cover part of her treatment. Marcus didn’t want to ask his estranged brother Landon for help, but we had no choice. Landon agreed—only if he got 40% of Marcus’s business. Reluctantly, we accepted.
Avery recovered fully. Months later, she won an art contest with a painting called My New Family. At the award ceremony, Marcus said, “We made it.”
I smiled. “No—she did.”