Chapter 10
Two teachers from preschool stopped by.
A few friends helped me set up chairs and clean afterward.
And when we sang happy birthday, Layla stood in front of her cake wearing a paper crown, surrounded by people who had shown up for her.
Not because I paid them.
Not because I begged them.
Not because they wanted something.
Simply because they loved her.
I took a photograph.
Then I looked at it for a long time.
It wasn't the family picture I'd imagined when I was younger.
My mother wasn't there.
My father wasn't there.
Jason wasn't there.
But everyone in the picture was smiling.
And nobody was pretending.
That evening, after the guests left, Layla curled against me on the couch.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, baby?"
"Is Andrea our family?"
I looked down at her.
"What do you think?"
She thought carefully.
"She came when I was sick. And she came for my birthday."
I kissed the top of her head.
"Then I think she is."
Layla nodded, satisfied.
Then she said something that made me cry later, after she'd fallen asleep.
"Good. Because family is supposed to come."
The last message from my father arrived six months after the hospital.
By then, Brianna had filed for divorce.
Jason had moved back into my parents' house.
The canceled honeymoon and the financial mess had become the kind of neighborhood gossip my mother always feared.
And apparently, my refusal to rescue everyone was still the official explanation for everything that had gone wrong.
Dad wrote:
I hope you're happy. Your brother has lost everything, and your mother cries every day. Families are supposed to forgive.
I read it once.
Then I opened the folder on my phone where I'd saved everything from that terrible week.
The hospital photographs.
The messages.
The attempted loan paperwork.
The voicemail.
And one picture I'd taken the day Layla finally came off oxygen.
In it, she was sitting upright in her hospital bed.
Her hair was tangled.
Her cheeks were pale.
She was holding a paper cup full of apple juice.
And she was smiling.
I looked at that photograph for a long time.
Then I wrote my father one final response.
You're right. Families are supposed to forgive. But they're also supposed to show up.
When Layla was fighting to breathe, I needed parents. She needed grandparents. Neither of us needed money. We needed love.
You had every opportunity to give us that, and you chose a honeymoon instead.