Nobody argued with her.
Ethan leaned into my side. Owen leaned into Claire’s. And for the first time since the day I gave birth, I looked at my family and didn’t feel like someone was missing from the picture.
Something had been stolen from us — eight years, a sister’s trust, a mother’s memories, a childhood I’ll never fully get back no matter how many stories Claire tells me. But the truth was finally sitting out in the open where we could all see it. And once something’s visible, you can name it. You can fight it. You can start figuring out what’s actually left to build with.
For eight years, Derek convinced all of us that family meant choosing one mother, one child, one version of the truth.
The real thing turned out to be a lot messier than that. But it was kinder, too — because it never once required Claire to disappear so I could be a mother, and it never required me to erase the woman who’d actually raised my son when I couldn’t.
