Page 212 of Don’t You Cry

I scatter a few silver stars between them, then add a puffy heart sticker on the bottom right.

Then another, smaller one beside it.

I pick up a third, then consider if it’ll be too much. I stare at it, tilting my head.

No.

There can never be too many.

I add three more.

Then the foam letters from their little plastic bag.

I stop. My face warms even though I’m alone in the room.

Daddy.

I arrange the letters along the top left, pressing each one firmly so they won’t peel. On the top right side, I spell out K A M M I E.

Then I put a little glitter heart between the names.

DADDY ♡ KAMMIE

I love it.

There is glitter everywhere now—stuck to the frame, dusting the construction paper beneath it, coating my fingertips in iridescent pink. Somehow there’s a smear on my knee too. I have no idea how it got there.

I hold the frame up to admire my work, then frown, because we don’t have a picture to put in it.

Adrien has approximately eight million photos of my dad, and I’ve seen pictures of him with half the men he served with, but I don’t have a single photo of the two of us.

That is unacceptable.

I will tell him. No—I’ll make him. The first thing we’re doing when he gets home is taking one.

Well, maybe not the very first thing. He has a habit of coming home and kissing me until I forget every plan I made while he was gone.

But soon.

Today.

Absolutely.

I add one last gem to the corner.

There.

Finished.