I never imagined my life would fracture so cleanly in a single sentence.
My daughter was only seventeen when she gave birth. Still a child herself, still halfway through school, still figuring out who she was. When she stood in my kitchen holding that tiny baby, her eyes hollow with exhaustion but stubborn with resolve, she told me she was going to leave school and find work. She said she needed me to watch the baby while she worked, just until she got on her feet.
I didn’t hear fear in her voice that day. I heard entitlement. At least, that’s what I told myself.
Something in me snapped. Years of working double shifts, raising her alone after her father left, sacrificing my own dreams so she could have opportunities—I felt it all rise up like bile. And before I could stop myself, I said words I can never take back.
“I’m not a free childcare center,” I told her coldly. “That child is your mistake, not mine. He’s your responsibility.”
She didn’t cry. She didn’t yell. She just smiled—softly, sadly—and nodded.
That smile should have scared me more than tears.
The next afternoon, I came home to a silence that felt wrong. Too clean. Too empty. Her shoes were gone. Her clothes. The baby’s blanket that had been draped over the couch.
On the table lay a folded piece of paper.
Continued on next page:
