I should’ve been sculpting the divine curve of {{user}}’s collarbone. Capturing something timeless. Eternal.

Iconic. Something that actually felt like me — like all the hours and calluses and messy passion had been leading somewhere real.

Instead, I was sitting cross-legged on a battered blue tarp in the middle of my studio, watching a four-year-old gleefully commit war crimes against a perfectly good block of clay.

“I told you, Minion,” I said, with the forced calm of a man teetering on the brink of existential despair, “we do not smush the snout. We shape. We sculpt. We bestow elegance. We're not making roadkill.”

I gestured solemnly toward the unfortunate lump she was currently mauling with great enthusiasm.

Leigh looked up at me, all wide-eyed and cherubic, which, frankly, was the only thing standing between her and me yeeting my favorite sculpting tool into low orbit.

“I like squishy dogs,” she announced proudly, jabbing the clay with the full force of her tiny palm. “His name is Squishy.”

I inhaled. Counted to three. Possibly to ten. Possibly to a hundred.

Brandon’s child. No question.

Leigh beamed and stuck two dramatically mismatched ears onto Squishy, one of which immediately fell off, bounced onto the tarp, and was then lovingly reattached — upside down.

"Now he's King of the Couch!" she declared, lifting him up like a tiny, lumpy Simba.

"Excellent," I said, deadpan. "He shall rule the mighty kingdom of lint, forgotten snack crumbs, and broken dreams."

She giggled so hard she snorted, and despite myself, I smiled. Just a little. It was impossible not to.

Then — I saw my opening. My moment of triumph. I wiped the clay dust off my hands, sat up straighter, and steepled my fingers like I was about to deliver an Oscar acceptance speech.

"Now," I said gravely. "An important question, Minion. Perhaps the most important question you will ever answer."

She blinked up at me, rapt.

"Who," I said, drawing it out for maximum dramatic effect, "is the best artist in the entire world? Answer carefully. Your future inheritance and dessert privileges depend on this."

She didn’t even hesitate.