Our new life was quiet, built carefully on the wreckage of the old one.

One afternoon, Rose brought a wooden box of old photographs to the house.

We sat on the porch, the summer breeze rustling the leaves of the oak trees in the yard.

Rose pulled out a faded picture of a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket.

“This was the day you were born,” Rose told Claire, her finger gently tracing the edge of the photo. “I kept this in my wallet for twenty years.”

Claire took the photo, her eyes filling with tears as she looked at her infant self.

She looked at Rose, then she looked at me, her two mothers sitting on either side of her.

She reached out and took both of our hands, holding them tightly between us in the warm afternoon air.

The shadows of the trees lengthened across the green lawn as the sun began to set behind the hills.

The road ahead of us was long and unmarked, but we were finally walking it in the light.