as proof that I had won a house.
As proof that the truth had existed even when everyone around me tried to hide it.
That evening, Riley slept in her cradle while Adam cooked dinner.
Sunlight stretched across the nursery floor, warm and quiet.
Nobody ordered me to leave.
Nobody told me to hide my pain.
And when my daughter woke and cried, three people came running—not because she was a boy, not because she had earned the better room, and not because anyone was watching.
We came because she was ours, she needed us, and love did not require her to suffer silently first.
