From that moment on, it was just Ainsley and me.
And looking back now… I think we were everything to each other.
I started calling her “Bubbles” when she was about four. She was obsessed with The Powerpuff Girls, especially Bubbles—the sweet one. The one who cried when things were sad and laughed the loudest when things were funny.
Every Saturday morning, we’d sit together with a bowl of cereal and whatever fruit I could afford that week, watching cartoons. She’d climb onto the couch beside me, tuck herself under my arm, and just… be happy.
Raising a child alone on a hardware store salary—and later a foreman’s wage—isn’t poetry. It’s math. And most of the time, that math is tight.
