I raised my champagne glass to celebrate my perfect engagement, but the moment two little girls looked me in the eyes and called me Dad, everything I'd built began to crumble.

Our second wedding anniversary was perfect.

We had a big party in the backyard. All our friends. All the families who’d lived in our homes. All the kids from the after-school programs. There was a bounce house. A clown (Mia was terrified of him, so we paid him to leave and got a face painter instead). Three different kinds of cake.

Lila made a speech. She was eight now. Taller. Braver. She stood on a chair in front of everyone and told the story of the first time she met me. How she’d run up and called me Dad and I’d dropped my champagne glass. Everyone laughed. Even me.

Mia sang a song. Off-key. At the top of her lungs. About unicorns and daddies and how much she loved her family. Everyone cried. Even the tough construction guys who worked for me.

Abana and I danced in the middle of the yard to our song—the same one we’d danced to at our senior prom, back when we were just two kids who thought we had the whole world figured out.

It was perfect.

But the best part came after everyone left.

After the last guest said goodbye. After we’d cleaned up the worst of the mess. After we’d tucked Lila and Mia into bed, kissed their foreheads, told them we loved them to the moon and back.

Abana and I went out onto the porch swing. The same one we’d sat on a hundred times before. We wrapped ourselves in a blanket and watched the fireflies blink in the backyard. Max was lying at our feet, snoring softly.

“Remember when we first met?” Abana said, smiling. “You were wearing that terrible flannel shirt. You spilled soda all over my shoes. And I thought, wow, this is the dorkiest boy I’ve ever met. I have to have him.”

I laughed.

“I remember,” I said. “I was so nervous I could barely talk. I’d had a crush on you for two years. I never thought you’d even look at me.”

“Look at us now,” she said. She held up her hand, wiggling her fingers so her ring caught the moonlight. “Married. Two kids. A dog. A company that changes lives. Who would’ve thought?”

“Not me,” I said. “Not seven years ago. Not even two years ago. I thought my life was over that night at the party. I thought I’d lost everything that mattered. I had no idea I was just about to get everything I’d ever really wanted.”

I pulled her closer.

“I was thinking,” I said. “About the letter I wrote you. The one I left on the kitchen table. The one that said I couldn’t do this. That I’d never be good enough.”

I paused.

“I was wrong,” I said. “I was so wrong. I am good enough. Because of you. Because of the girls. You made me good enough. You loved me when I didn’t deserve it. You forgave me when I had no right to ask. You gave me a family. A home. A reason to be better every single day. I don’t say it enough, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to show you how grateful I am.”

Abana turned to look at me. Her eyes were glistening in the moonlight.

“You show me every day,” she said. “Every time you make pancakes shaped like dinosaurs. Every time you kill a spider at 2 a.m. Every time you hold my hand when I’m scared. Every time you look at Lila and Mia like they hung the moon. That’s all I ever wanted. All any of us ever wanted. Just you. Here. With us.”

She kissed me. Soft. Slow. Perfect.

From inside the house, we heard a small voice.

“Daddy? Mommy?”

We pulled apart.

Mia was standing in the kitchen doorway, rubbing her eyes, holding her stuffed unicorn.

“Can I sleep with you guys tonight?” she asked. “I had a bad dream about the clown.”

“Of course you can, baby,” Abana said.

Mia ran over and climbed onto my lap. She wrapped her little arms around my neck and rested her head on my shoulder.

A minute later, Lila appeared in the doorway too.

“Me too,” she said, pretending she was too old for it, but her voice gave her away. “I mean… if there’s room.”

“Always room for you, baby girl,” I said.

She climbed onto Abana’s lap.

Max woke up, thumped his tail once, then put his head back down and went back to sleep.

We sat there for a long time. The four of us. On the porch swing. Wrapped in the blanket. Watching the fireflies. Listening to the crickets chirp in the dark.

Lila fell asleep first. Her breathing slowed. Her head lolled against Abana’s shoulder.

Mia was next. Her unicorn slipped out of her hand and onto the floor. She didn’t even notice.

Abana and I looked at each other over the tops of our daughters’ heads.

We didn’t say anything.

We didn’t need to.

Everything that needed to be said had already been said. A thousand times. In a thousand different ways.

I looked up at the sky. It was full of stars. Brighter than I’d ever seen them in the city.

I thought about how far I’d come.

From the scared boy who’d run away. To the man who’d fought for his family. To the husband and father I was now.

I’d lost everything once.

And in losing it, I’d found the only things that ever really mattered.

Love.