Last week, I had to go to the dreaded DMV. Though I swore I’d made my last visit there, it turns out neither Rob nor I corrected our address upon moving, and our car registration renewal was sent to the wrong place. I took the earliest available appointment, an after-school option, thus ensuring that I had Scarlett along for the trip. Awesome choice, because if there’s anything more fun than going to the DMV, it’s taking a small child to the DMV. Especially a small child who announces the dire need to pee immediately after you arrive and are assigned a number. Winners all around.

We had gotten there early, and, rather than hang out in the depressing and crowded germ closet that is the DMV, we decided to take a walk (as I’ve said before, this is a term I use loosely) through the nearby Panhandle, which looks just like it sounds, a long, narrow extension to the “pan” of Golden Gate Park. It’s a place I’ve taken Scarlett a million times, because our first apartment was just one block away.

Back then, I walked (REAL walking) through the Panhandle almost every day with my new baby, snuggling her into a wrap against my chest or tucking her into an Ergo carrier to go get my morning coffee. I pushed her in a stroller for miles to get to Spreckels Lake, where we watched people sail small, electric powered boats. When she got older, I drove her to Stow Lake, where she toddled drunkenly down a dirt path, running directly into the old men doing tai chi and groups of women power walking. Golden Gate Park is huge, and it has something for everyone. But the Panhandle was our own backyard, with a playground where she learned to love swings more than slides, and sand more than anything.

We haven’t had many reasons to hang out in our old neighborhood. Most of my friends have moved away, and I do try (apparently with limited success) to keep the DMV visits to a minimum. So this was the first time we had ever cruised that familiar path in a wheelchair. I looked around at this spot I’d known so well, and the reality of what we’ve lost came rushing at me with all the weight of our past together.

This was not how it was supposed to be. We should be running, playing tag, falling down and cracking up. I should be standing on the path, watching her blow dandelion fuzz into the trees. I should be wearing truly adorable shoes. I didn’t exactly cry at this point, but my eyes were getting a little, um, misty, and that was when Scarlett chose to declare, “I want a brother.”

I took a breath.

“You have Jack,” I said, referring to her 2-year-old cousin.

“No,” she explained. “I want a brother that YOU made. Can you make one, please?”

It’s funny, in a Sarah-you’re-an-idiot kind of way, that I thought we’d made it past the point where this conversation would happen. She’s only 4 years old, but for some reason I had the idea that she wasn’t ever going to focus on her lack of a sibling. I’d watched and waited for a mention since my initial diagnosis, when Rob and I realized—with extreme grief—that more kids weren’t in the cards for us. And then when Baby Jack was born, I just figured he would take care of that particular craving, for all of us.

I am mostly past the desire to have another baby. We do have Jack, a brother to Scout in so many ways. I have adapted to ALS well enough that I realize how lucky I am to have this one beautiful, hilarious and healthy child. So rather than moving my mistiness to tears, her question snapped me back into the moment.

“You are the only baby that Daddy and I want,” I said, holding her close as we spun around and headed back to the DMV. And all the while she knew she had to pee and she didn’t say a damn thing.

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