When my daughter was born, my stepdad barely showed up. Mom said he wasn’t good with babies, but I knew the truth: he hadn’t held one since the night they lost theirs—a daughter named Isla Grace, whose name no one said anymore.
Then one Sunday, as we visited, my baby reached out to him. He froze, then carefully pulled her into his lap. “You feel just like she did,” he whispered. It was the first time I’d heard him speak of Isla.
That moment opened something in him. The next week, he cleaned up the old swing set. Later, he gave me a box of Isla’s things—a tiny bracelet, baby clothes, and a letter he’d written the day after she died. In it, he wrote, “If one day another little hand finds mine, I’ll know you sent her.”
Ava became his second chance. She brought laughter, healing, and stories he’d locked away for decades. He even built a garden for Isla—quiet and full of daisies, with a small sign that read For I.G.
Years later, Ava drew a picture of a girl with wings and said, “That’s my flying friend. She used to be lonely, but not anymore.”
We never told her about Isla.
But maybe… Isla told her.
