“Anything.”
“When I’m gone, don’t waste time on bitterness. Your mother made her choice, and it was the wrong one. But don’t let that choice define your life.”
I felt a chill despite the summer heat.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
She smiled sadly. “We all go somewhere eventually, honey. Just promise me you’ll live fully.
That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
“I promise,” I whispered, resting my head on her shoulder like I had countless times before.
Three months later, she was gone. A stroke in her sleep. “Peaceful and a blessing, really,” the doctor said.
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But it didn’t feel like a blessing to me.
I was 32 when I buried her. My mother arrived with her family, but I never really saw any remorse in her eyes. She didn’t even look at me during the service.
The house felt empty without Grandma.
I wandered from room to room, touching her things — the crocheted blanket on the couch, the collection of ceramic birds on the mantel, and the worn cookbook in the kitchen with her handwritten notes in the margins.
God, I missed her so much.
Just a few days after the funeral, there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, I froze.
It was my mother.
She looked older, gray threading through her dark hair, and lines around her eyes and mouth that hadn’t been there before. But her eyes were the same — distant and calculating.
“Please,” she whispered, gripping her purse with white-knuckled hands.
“I just need to talk to you.”
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Every instinct in me screamed to shut the door and walk away. But something in her tone, something almost… defeated, made me pause.
I crossed my arms.
“Talk.”
She exhaled, looking down before meeting my gaze. “Your brother knows about you.”
My breath hitched. “What do you mean?”
“Before she passed, your grandmother sent him a message.
And told him everything.”
I swallowed hard.
“He was too young to remember you, Rebecca. And I… I didn’t let your grandmother talk about you to him.
I told her if she did, she’d never see him again.”
My stomach churned. It was worse than I imagined. My mother not only abandoned me…
she ERASED me.
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