“But…
I stared at my phone for a long second, then unlocked it and deleted the voicemail.
“He doesn’t get to touch my son,” I said quietly. “He forfeited that right the day he gave him up. And he did…
in the divorce settlement, Mark. Cole said that he was happy with Vanessa at the time and that their baby was enough for him.”
“Then, it’s over, Lila,” Mark said.
Later that night, after Ethan had gone to bed, I helped Aubrey, Mark’s six-year-old, comb out her curls. She sat cross-legged in front of me, chattering about her favorite teacher and how she wanted to be a “scientist-artist-ballerina.”
When I gently clipped her hair back with a butterfly barrette, she looked up at me and smiled.
“Daddy says you’re really special,” she said.
I smiled back at the sweet little girl.
and how it could have all broken me.
Instead, it uncovered the woman I’d forgotten I was.
Cole and Vanessa thought they were tearing something down. What they really did was make space for something better.
Sometimes I wonder what they’re like, as a twisted family with a child who didn’t ask for this… but then I look at my son and the thought goes away.
Ethan is growing up in a home filled with safety, laughter, and love. And Aubrey has my heart in her tiny hands.
I am healing…
while being held by Mark.
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