For a moment, I didn’t move.
Coffee dripped from the front of my blue scrubs onto the kitchen floor. My mother stood beside the sink, breathing hard, while Mia leaned against the doorway with her phone in one hand and a smile on her face.
I looked from one to the other.
Then I asked a question so quietly that my mother almost missed it.
“Are you absolutely sure this is what you want?”
She laughed.
“Lauren, don’t start with your pathetic speeches. You’ve been living off this family long enough.”
I stared at her.
Living off this family.
I thought about the hospital shifts.
The missed weekends.
The birthdays I’d spent working overtime.
The thousands of dollars I’d transferred into my mother’s account.
And the eight thousand dollars I’d sent that very morning.
I swallowed.
“Okay.”
My mother blinked.
“What?”
I nodded slowly.
“Okay. I’ll leave.”
Mia snorted.
“Finally.”
I walked past them and returned to my empty bedroom.
The trash bag sat in the middle of the carpet.
I untied it.
Inside were a few T-shirts, two pairs of jeans, my old sneakers, and a photograph of my father holding me when I was six.
Everything else was gone.
My nursing textbooks.
My graduation certificate.
The watch Dad had given me before he died.
The little wooden box where I kept his letters.
I looked toward the hallway.
“Where are Dad’s things?”
My mother appeared in the doorway.
“What things?”
“My watch. His letters. The wooden box.”
She waved a hand.
“Oh, those old things? Mia needed the closet space. I put some boxes in the garage.”
I closed my eyes.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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