When Lily returns from a weekend with her dad wearing cheap clothes, her mom discovers her ex’s new wife has been giving Lily’s things to her own daughters. But when they try to transfer Lily out of private school without consent? That’s when the real fight begins.
Lily walked through our front door on a Sunday evening, dragging her weekend bag behind her.
She looked smaller somehow. Different.
It took me a moment to realize why. “Hey, sweetheart,” I said, looking up from my laptop.
“How was Dad’s?”
She shrugged in the universal teenage gesture that could mean anything.
“That good, huh?” I pressed. “It was fine, Mom. The usual.”
But it clearly wasn’t fine.
The jeans she wore hung loosely around her waist, and the t-shirt had a faded cartoon character I’d never seen before.
These weren’t her clothes. “Lily?
Whose clothes are you wearing?”
She looked down and tugged at the hem of the t-shirt. “I dunno.
Georgia’s, I guess.”
Georgia was her step-sister.
“Did something happen to your clothes? Where’s your blue sweater?” I asked. “The one we bought last month?”
Another shrug.
“Brianna gives my nice clothes to Georgia and Samantha.
Then she gives me the stuff she and Dad buy from Target.”
She said it so casually, like my ex-husband’s new wife redistributing my daughter’s wardrobe was just another weekend routine. Oh, God, was it just another weekend routine?
“Sweetheart, does this happen every time you visit your dad?”
She shook her head. “Not every time, but a lot, I guess.”
I was horrified.
Not just at Brianna, but at myself, too, for not noticing this was happening sooner.
Mark and I divorced five years ago. I have primary custody, but Lily spends two weekends a month with him. This arrangement has worked perfectly for all these years.
Recently, Mark married Brianna, who has sole custody of her two daughters from a previous marriage.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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