Chapter 2: The Truth Everyone Avoided

New Year's Eve arrived wrapped in silence.

Then my aunt called.

"Please," she whispered.

"Your mother isn't eating."

I closed my eyes.

"She wasn't worried when my daughter was being humiliated."

"She didn't mean it."

I laughed.

"No."

"She meant every word."

Silence.

Then my aunt sighed.

"There's something you deserve to know."

She confessed that my grandmother had treated my mother exactly the same way.

Nothing was ever good enough.

Too skinny.

Too loud.

Too emotional.

Too ordinary.

Eventually...

My mother became exactly what had once broken her.

She never learned another way to love.

For a moment...

I almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

Then I remembered Lily's tiny face while everyone laughed.

Compassion did not require reconciliation.

That evening another message arrived.

This time...

From my mother herself.

"I did everything for this family."

"You owe me."

I read it twice.

Then finally replied with the only words I had never dared say before.

"I owed you respect."

"I never owed you my daughter."

I pressed send.

Then blocked her number forever.