“And Jenny didn’t even like me. Not really. She barely tolerated me. I don’t understand how she was okay with me raising her daughter.”
My mom stared down at her cocoa for a moment, then looked back up at me.
“I don’t know exactly why they chose you,” she said. “I can’t answer that for them.”
That didn’t help. Not at first.
But then she kept going.
“We are older, your father and I,” she said. “They must have thought about it, about what would happen if something were to happen to us. They didn’t want Lily losing her parents and then not long after, losing her guardians too.”
I frowned. “So they picked me because I was… younger?”
She shook her head. “Not just that. But it mattered.”
She paused, then added, “They wanted someone who would be there, for far longer. Someone they trusted, someone Lily already knew.”
I let that sit.
“She trusted you,” my mom said quietly. “And so did Matt.”
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking slightly.
“I’m not prepared,” I said. “I don’t feel ready for this. I don’t think I ever will.”
She leaned back in her chair and studied me.
“No one ever is,” she said. “There’s no point where you wake up and feel ready to be a parent.”
She took a sip of her cocoa, then looked at me again.
“Do you love her?”
The question caught me off guard.
“What?” I said, sharper than I meant to. “Of course I love her. Why would you even ask that?”
It stung. It felt unfair, even for all my faults, there was no doubt about that, I loved that child with everything in me.
She smiled gently, completely unbothered.
“Then you’re halfway there,” she said.
I stared at her.
“That’s it,” she continued. “That’s the part that matters most. Everything else, you figure it out as you go.”
She reached across the table and rested her hand over mine.
“You’re not doing this alone,” she said. “Your father and I are here. And we’re not going anywhere.”
My chest tightened.
I nodded, once.
The cocoa had cooled enough to drink. I took a sip, the taste instantly pulling me back to a time when things felt simpler. When sitting at this same table meant safety instead of responsibility.
For the first time since Lily’s tantrum, the pressure in my chest eased just a little.
