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“I treated you so cruelly,” I stammered. “Yesterday, I…”
“You were scared,” she said quietly. “You were sixteen. And yesterday… you were still afraid.”
There was no bitterness in her voice.
Only understanding.
She grew up to be a woman with strength that I didn’t have at her age. A heart big enough to sympathize with the mother who abandoned her.
Two weeks later, the transplant took place.
She didn’t ask for anything in return. No apologies. No recognition. No place in our family.
It just appeared. Again and again. Sitting by Lily’s bedside. Reading her stories. Holding her little hand.
Lily loves her.
Ethan follows her as if she were a heroine.
A Daniel…
Daniel forgave me. But he made something very clear to me.
“You can’t just erase people from your life just because they remind you of your shame,” he said quietly one evening. “You have to face it. Otherwise, it will hold you in its clutches forever.”