“She’s my boyfriend’s daughter.”
***
Still, my nine-year-old daughter simply refused to give up trying to win her over.
Hazel drew birthday cards for Vanessa with glitter-glue borders. She picked wildflowers for her from the ditch behind our house and arranged them in a jelly jar. My daughter even emptied her allowance from the piggy bank on her dresser to buy a tiny silver bracelet for Vanessa from the mall kiosk, the kind with a single dangling heart.
“Do you think she’ll wear it, Mama?”
“I hope so, sweetheart.”
She picked wildflowers for her.
“I’m going to keep trying,” Hazel said very seriously, the way children sometimes do. “I want her to know I’m nice.”
“You are nice, Hazel. You don’t have to earn that.”
My daughter just nodded, already sketching a new drawing across the kitchen table.
***
That night, when Patrick announced their engagement, I tucked Hazel in under her constellation quilt. She fell asleep clutching the newest picture she’d made for Vanessa, a stick-figure family with three tall people and one small one in the middle, all holding hands.
