My mother believed love was a transaction: effort in, achievement out. She built me like a fortress—polished, disciplined, impenetrable. When I chose Anna and Aaron, she saw it as betrayal, not love.
Walking away from her wasn’t a grand act of courage; it was a quiet decision to stop auditioning for a role I never wanted. Our little home, with its sticky drawers and green handprints, became the first place I was allowed to be unfinished and still enough.
Her visit years later didn’t end in a hug or a perfect reconciliation. It ended with a drawing in her hands, a boy’s music echoing through a cramped hallway, and a woman realizing too late what control had cost her. The gift card on our doorstep wasn’t forgiveness or redemption. It was a fragile, trembling attempt at a different kind of love—one that finally let someone choose for themselves.