I just love this beautiful new piece by Thao Thai. It opens with one of those lovely newborn memories of rocking her daughter to sleep (which are all the more precious later on, when you aren’t running on fumes): “Back and forth, back and forth, for at least half an hour. Sometimes more. I’d watch the shadows on the walls: great big whales, a frond of a palm tree, a continent creeping slowly past. She’d stare up at me until her lids became heavy and dropped like valances. It was a space neither here nor there; a space for exhaustion, for love.” Every night she’d whisper to her daughter that she loved her — in her native language.

And then one day, years later, her daughter said it back. Though she’d said it before, this time it just hit differently. It’s a sweet story for a Friday. Have a nice weekend!

Kelly Faircloth, Executive Editor