Then I bumped the side table.
A folder slipped. I picked it up, expecting tax papers. But inside—cruise tickets.
I blinked.
I read them twice and my fingers tightening.
Edmund Morocco. Elizabeth Morocco. Lester. Loisa. Lyle. Nash.
My name wasn’t there.
Not even as a +1. Not even as a footnote.
The cruise? The one I dreamed of...
But now? Elizabeth’s birthday is in three days and he has time? He remembered hers.
Not mine.
Never mine.
I folded the tickets gently. Like they could bleed.
Then I packed his suitcase. Polished his shoes. Ironed his pants. Lined up his deodorant and vitamins like hotel staff would.
Lester walked in. No knock. “Ma, pack my stuff too, yeah? Loisa’s busy.” He sipped a beer. “Don’t forget the twins. Nash wants his charger. Lyle needs the blue swim shorts. Snacks too—they get bored.”
Then he left. And I packed it all.
Tiny shorts. Rolled t-shirts. Loisa’s perfume wrapped in a sock. Ziplocked snacks labeled with love.
Then I went to my room. Quietly. Closed the door.
I sat there on my bed, hands trembling, and my mind drifted back. Back to when I was just eighteen.
When Edmund wasn’t a man who kicked me in the knee or forgot my name on a cruise ticket.