The photographer clicked the shutter.
And for one second, I forgot Kayla was there.
I simply felt the weight of
both girls against me.
The babies I’d rocked through the night.
The children I’d raised.
The women they had become.
That photograph did not prove I had won.
Families aren’t competitions.
It showed something simpler.
Love leaves evidence.
So does absence.
For illustrative purposes only
Part 9 — “You Turned Them Against Me”
After the photographs, Kayla found me near the coatroom.
Her eyes were swollen.
Her perfect makeup had begun to smudge.
“You did this.”
I turned toward her.
“Did what?”
“You made them hate me.”
For a moment, I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because after twenty years, she still needed someone else to be responsible for her choices.
“I never taught them to hate you.”
“You must’ve spent years telling them terrible things about me.”
