Was I?
I stared at my reflection in the ornate mirror. A woman with silver-streaked dark hair cut in a practical bob, wearing a department-store dress I’d spent hours selecting. Not glamorous like Victoria Prescott with her salon-maintained blonde perfection—but not the embarrassment Amber had portrayed, either.
I thought back over the years: Halloween costumes sewn late into the night, school lunches packed with handwritten notes, college care packages, quiet support through Amber’s first heartbreak. I’d made mistakes—certainly, all parents do—but the worst mother anyone could have?
My phone buzzed with a text from Amber.
Where did you go? The planner needs to go over your entrance timing again.
No apology. No acknowledgement of the cruel words still reverberating in my head. Just impatience that I wasn’t fulfilling my assigned role in her perfect production.
I texted back, Not feeling well. Going home to rest before tomorrow. Everything will be fine.
As I drove home to the modest three-bedroom house where I’d raised Amber alone after her father decided fatherhood was too constraining for his lifestyle, I found myself thinking about the property across town where Amber and Blake now lived.
The beautiful colonial on Maple Avenue that had belonged to my father, passed to me upon his death three years ago, with the suggestion—never a condition—that I could transfer it to Amber when the time was right.
I’d allowed them to move in immediately, planning to sign over the deed as a wedding gift, a fresh start without the burden of a mortgage. Amber had never questioned the arrangement. She’d never asked about the property’s ownership.
She’d simply accepted, the way she’d always accepted my sacrifices—with an entitlement I’d mistaken for confidence.
At home, I kicked off my sensible heels and sat at my kitchen table, surrounded by wedding preparations. My mother-of-the-bride dress hung on the laundry-room door, soft blue silk I’d saved for months to afford.
The handcrafted guest book I’d spent weeks creating. The emergency kit of fashion tape and aspirin and Band-Aids I’d assembled for tomorrow.
“Desaparece de mi vida,” I whispered to the empty room, testing how the words felt in my mouth.
Disappear from my life.
Perhaps after all these years, it was time to give my daughter exactly what she’d asked for.
I reached for my laptop, opened it, and began to type.
