Years passed.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of him as “Mom’s husband.”
He was simply Daniel.
The man who knew exactly how I liked my pancakes.
The man who could tell I was upset from the way I closed a door.
The man who remembered every important date.
The man who showed up.
## Then Life Changed Again
When I was nineteen, I moved away for college.
For the first time, I wasn’t living at home.