Natalie did not hesitate.
"I can give them all of this now, Nathan. They deserve more than this," she said, pointing to the house.
Something warm rose in my chest. I was about to send her away. But before the words could come out, Maya stood up.
- Father...
I stopped.
Maya looked at Natalie without gentleness, without despair. Natalie saw that as hope and smiled through tears.
"I knew you'd understand, darling," he said, touching Maya's face.
Maya stared at her firmly.
Mom, we've dreamed of this moment for ten years. We knew you could come back someday. And you came back just in time. We only want to give you one thing.
Natalie's eyes lit up.
Is this my Mother's Day gift?
"Almost," said Maya, and walked over to the kitchen cupboard.
She reached the bottom of the lower cupboard, that little space the children had always treated as their own—filled with clay handprints, school drawings, unfinished cards, and the broken music box Rosie still refused to throw away.
Maya pulled out a small package wrapped in old tissue paper.
My heart raced because I had never seen anything like it before.
Natalie took it in both hands, her eyes shining, already convinced that this would be the moment her children would show her that she still mattered. She began to slowly unroll the tape. The paper opened.
Then the color drained from her face.
"How dare you?" she shouted.
I crossed the room before I even realized I was moving.
At the top was a card handwritten by Maya:
"Go away. We don't need you."
Below were torn photos of Natalie and a stack of old Mother's Day cards—some made of cardstock, one covered in glitter that had long since spread everywhere—and a small paper flower that Rosie had probably made when she was too young to understand who she was making it for.
Natalie gripped the papers with trembling hands.
- What is that?
Maya replied calmly:
— Everything we did for you when you didn't come.
Then Owen stood up and pointed to one of the oldest cards.
— That was mine. I was seven years old.
CONTINUE READING...>>
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