"I hope you don't mind me saying something."
"You apologized to almost every employee you've spoken to since yesterday," he began.
Heat crept into my face.
"You apologized when you asked where the elevator was. You apologized when your daughter dropped her goggles. You apologized when housekeeping held the door."
He smiled kindly.
"I don't think you've done anything that required an apology."
For a moment, I could not speak.
Because he was right.
"I don't think you've done anything that required an apology."
I had apologized my way through a year of survival.
To nurses.
To receptionists.
To teachers.
To insurance agents.
To people in grocery store lines when Mia needed to move slowly.
I had become so used to asking the world to make room for my daughter that I had forgotten we were allowed to take up space.
I had become so used to asking the world to make room for my daughter.
***
Mia was still reading the card. Her lips trembled.
Then she picked up the photo session voucher.
