After years of silence, my estranged mother reappeared unannounced, wearing a smile as sharp as her intentions. This was the woman who had thrown me out at 15, leaving my father to piece my life back together. Now, with his passing, she had come to claim her share of his legacy, igniting a battle I wasn’t prepared to lose.
The day Dad died, it felt like the ground had crumbled beneath me. I sat in his hospital room, clutching his hand as the machines went silent. The cancer had moved swiftly, giving us only three months from diagnosis to goodbye. In those final days, despite his pain, Dad still managed to smile, squeezing my hand and cracking jokes about the hospital food.
“Catherine,” he whispered the night before he passed, his voice faint but resolute, “promise me you’ll keep living—not just surviving.”
I promised him, even as the weight of grief settled in. But as I left the hospital, another memory surfaced, unbidden and unwanted: Mom. The woman who had abandoned me when I needed her most.
