She hesitated like she didn’t know if she was allowed to exist.
“Lila.”
“How did your mother know me?”
She dug into her pocket and handed me a small, creased photograph.
And that was the moment everything inside me shifted.
It was me—years younger—standing with a woman who had the same warm brown eyes as the girl in front of me.
My college sweetheart.
The woman I wasn’t allowed to love because my mother had decided she “wasn’t our kind of people.”
The woman who disappeared after the breakup, long before I understood how much I’d lost.
The woman who apparently never told me she was pregnant.
The world blurred at the edges. I could barely breathe.
“Where is your mother now?” I asked.
Lila looked down. “She passed away two months ago.”
The storm suddenly felt colder.
Inside the envelope were three simple lines:
Ezra,
If life was cruel to us, don’t let it be cruel to her.
She is yours.
— Mara
I sank to my knees.
Lila panicked, apologizing, thinking she had done something wrong. But she hadn’t.
I opened the gate.
“Lila,” I said softly, “you’re coming inside.”
She looked terrified. “Your family won’t want me here.”
A bitter smile tugged at my lips.
“My family doesn’t get to decide that anymore.”