I considered the question carefully. “I think she regrets losing the money more than losing you, and that tells you everything you need to know about who she is.”
Ethan nodded slowly. “You know what’s weird? I don’t even feel angry at her anymore. I just feel nothing. She’s a stranger who happened to give birth to us.”
“That’s healthy,” I told him.
Sophie squeezed my hand. “Thank you for being our real mom. For choosing us when nobody else would.”
I squeezed back, my heart full. “You two saved me just as much as I saved you. I was drowning in grief, and you gave me a reason to keep living.”
“You two saved me
just as much as I
saved you.”
Ethan’s voice was soft but steady. “You already repaid us. Every single day for 18 years.”
We sat there in comfortable silence, watching the sky turn purple and gold. Somewhere out there, Alicia was living with her regrets and her consequences. But here on this porch, we had everything that mattered.
Blood doesn’t make you family. Love does. Showing up does. Staying does.
Ethan and Sophie learned that lesson the hard way, but they came through it stronger. And Alicia? She’ll be remembered as the woman who abandoned her children twice: once on a plane and once when she tried to buy them back.
But she’ll never be remembered as their mother. That title is mine, and I earned it.
But she’ll never be remembered as their mother.
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