Oliver moved to California.

I don’t know when I fell in love with this child I barely knew. He’s the first person to whom I ever freely said “I love you.”

He’s only two. He won’t remember me, but he filled a void in my life I didn’t know existed.

Dana C. Smith holds an MFA in writing from Spalding University with an emphasis on fiction. Her previous work has appeared in “Ladies Home Journal” online version, “House Organ,” and “Escape Your World,” a short story anthology by Scribes Valley Publishing Company, where she was a finalist in a 2015 short fiction competition. She lives and writes in Nashville, Tennessee.