Within a month, I was sleeping in my car with two small children in the back seat, telling them we were “camping” while I tried to figure out how to keep the world from collapsing completely.
Eventually, desperation overpowered pride.
I drove to my mother’s house.
When she opened the door, she looked smaller than I remembered — thinner, her shoulders slightly hunched, her eyes tired but still soft in that familiar way that once made everything feel fixable.
The words spilled out of me all at once. I told her about the layoff. About the eviction notice.
About how we’d been bathing in gas station restrooms and parking under streetlights because it felt safer.
“I have nowhere else to go,” I finished, my voice cracking.
She hesitated.
That hesitation will echo in me forever.
“My boyfriend…” she said quietly, fingers tightening on the edge of the door. “He wouldn’t allow it. I’m so sorry.”
It felt like the ground disappeared.
For a second, I couldn’t even breathe.
“Then forget me,” I whispered.
I turned before she could see my face break and walked back to the car, each step heavier than the last.
Over the next few days, my phone wouldn’t stop lighting up with her name.
Missed calls.
Voice messages that started strong and ended shaky.
“Please, sweetheart.
Just come talk to me. Please.”
But I was furious. Hurt in a way that felt permanent.
I told myself that if she truly loved me, she would have chosen me over anyone.
So I didn’t answer.
Five weeks later, I got the call.
She was gone.
A heart condition, they said. Sudden, but not unexpected.
I didn’t know what that meant at the time. I just felt numb — like someone had turned down the volume on the world.
At the funeral, her boyfriend approached me.
His eyes were swollen, his voice unsteady.
“She wanted to tell you,” he said. “But you wouldn’t answer.”
My name was stitched onto it in thread slightly crooked, like she’d rushed but still wanted it perfect.
“She made this for you,” he said. “Said you’d need it someday.”
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside were tiny crocheted hats, soft sweaters, and small blankets — each one carefully labeled with my children’s names in her handwriting.
Nestled between the folds of yarn were letters.
Several of them.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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