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I swallowed.
“I failed her.”
“I was working two jobs then. Your grandfather had just been diagnosed with his first bout of cancer, and the medical bills were crushing us. When Rachel called crying, saying she couldn’t handle it anymore, I told her she needed to be stronger.
I told her that motherhood required sacrifice.”
I pulled out a photograph, one I’d never shown them. Rachel at 24—gaunt and hollow-eyed—holding all three of them while they screamed. She looked like a ghost of herself.
“I should have seen that she was drowning,” I continued. “Should have moved in, taken leave from work, something. Instead, I gave her advice from my kitchen while she was falling apart in hers.”
“That doesn’t excuse what she did,” Daniel said.
And there was steel in his voice that reminded me painfully of myself. “No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.
But it explains it.”
“Your mother didn’t just abandon you. She abandoned the part of herself that was failing you. Some people run toward their problems, and some people run away.
Marcus was crying silently, tears tracking down his cheeks. David had gone very still, the way he always did when processing difficult emotions. Daniel’s jaw was clenched, his hands fisted.
“So why come back now?” Daniel asked. “Why sue you for kidnapping?”
This was the part I’d hoped to avoid. But they deserved the truth.
I reached into the envelope and pulled out a folder I’d kept separate from the rest. Legal documents I’d received just last month. “Your father had a life insurance policy,” I said quietly.
“A substantial one. It was set up to be released when you turned 18 with your mother as the beneficiary since she was listed as your guardian.”
The silence that followed was deafening. “She’s only here for the money,” David whispered.
“We don’t know that for certain.”
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