But I promise I’m still here tomorrow.
I closed the notebook and shoved it into the junk drawer.
The next year, I wrote another entry.
Then another.
Soon it became a habit.
Whenever I felt like I had failed them, I wrote.
Whenever something wonderful happened, I wrote.
Whenever I was afraid I wouldn’t remember how small they had once been, I wrote.
I never planned to show them.
I just needed somewhere to put everything I couldn’t say out loud.
Years passed.
The girls developed three completely different personalities despite looking enough alike to confuse every teacher they ever had.
Lily was the responsible one.
She made lists before she could spell properly and cried if she got anything lower than an A-minus.
Brooke was chaos.
At nine, she tried to build a zip line from our balcony to Mrs. Coleman’s fire escape.
At eleven, she cut her own bangs at midnight and blamed Sophie.
Sophie was quieter.
She noticed things the others didn’t.
If I came home worried about money, Sophie knew.
If I had a headache, she brought aspirin before I asked.
If I was pretending everything was fine, she usually watched me until I admitted it wasn’t.
By then, none of them called me Uncle Mason anymore.
The change happened gradually.
When they were little, it was “Uncle Mason.”
Then “Mason.”
