That portrait brought back memories of our most hopeful year together. Dwayne held my hand, and we painted an image of our imagined child, stroke by stroke. Her delicate features—eyes like mine and lips like his—formed a beautiful, happy vision of the daughter we had dreamed of raising in a loving family of three.
But Dwayne destroyed it all. Even the evidence of our child’s existence had been discarded like trash.
With trembling hands, I clutched the portrait to my chest, trying to feel the presence of the child I had lost. Tears fell uncontrollably as I finally let the flames consume it, turning every last remnant of that dream into ashes.
The firelight flickered brightly, and for a moment, I seemed to see a young child waving at me.
She wore the white princess dress I had just burned for her. She smiled happily as her eyes met mine, babbling softly, as though calling: "Mom..."
I instinctively reached out to touch her, but my palm was scorched by the heat of the fire.
It was then I realized—my child had completely left me. Her brief appearance wasn’t to linger but to help me let go, urging me to leave this sorrow behind and face life again.