The kitchen smelled like cinnamon toast and coffee, the kind of morning that felt so ordinary you stopped noticing it. Sunlight slipped through the blinds in soft yellow stripes across the counter. I packed Lily’s lunch box with grapes and a juice pouch, humming under my breath.
“Mommy, Bunny says she wants jelly today, not peanut butter.”
I turned around to find my eight-year-old at the table, her pink bunny plushy propped up beside her cereal bowl like a little dinner guest.
“Bunny is very picky,” I said, smiling. “Tell her jelly it is.”
“She also says her ear hurts.”
I glanced at the half-torn ear, dangling sadly by a few threads. “We can ask Daddy to fix it tonight.”
“Only Daddy,” Lily said firmly, hugging the bunny to her chest. “Daddy said.”