Chapter 3

Because I refused his ridiculous demands, the divorce hit a stalemate.

"Mom, are you really divorcing Uncle Logan?" Shirley asked me timidly later that evening.

Seeing that my expression was calm, she slid a little closer to me on the sofa.

Putting on her sweetest voice, she pleaded, "I think Uncle Logan is a wonderful person. I really like having him around. Can't you two just work it out?"

Her reasoning was ready: she was a teenager about to take her SATs, and this was the critical moment in her life when a girl needed a father figure the most.

Then came the dramatic tears: "Besides, I don't want to come from a broken home."

Shirley had joined our family when she was just two years old. I had raised her with my own two hands.

She may not have been my flesh and blood, but I loved her as if she were.

When she was small, I took her to the office with me. Everything regarding her care, from doctors to schooling, was handled directly by me.

Logan had always refused to acknowledge her. He never spent a single day looking after her and strictly forbade her from calling him 'Dad.'

Yet for reasons I could never comprehend, Shirley adored Logan.

Back in preschool, she threw tantrums every single morning, crying, "I only want Daddy to drive me to school!"

No matter how I coaxed her, our mornings dissolved into screaming fits.

It didn't just drain me; it exhausted my elderly mother, too.

Whenever Logan deigned to come home, Shirley would rush to the front door, fetching his house slippers and pouring him cold drinks.

She would chirp with a beaming smile, "Welcome home, Daddy!"

I, the mother who provided for her every need, had never once received such sweet treatment.

Logan's response to her was always ice-cold: "I am not your father. Stop calling me that."

Shirley would look crestfallen, quickly correcting herself, "Okay... Uncle Logan, please don't be mad."

Whenever I spoke up to shield her from his coldness, Shirley turned on me. She hated when I defended her and wouldn't tolerate a single critical word about Logan.

She insisted on chasing after his approval, desperately fawning over a man who looked down on her.

Logan would always glance at me with sheer contempt: "We're both raising someone else's kid, Audrey, so why is yours so ungrateful? You treat her like a princess, and she acts like a traitor. If I were you, I'd send her back to foster care and get another one."

Back then, the adoption paperwork hadn't been finalized.

I could have walked away.

But my heart wouldn't let me; I already loved Shirley as my own daughter.

I kept telling myself that she wasn't ungrateful—she was just deeply insecure.

Perhaps she felt that quiet maternal love was guaranteed, while loud, distant paternal validation was something she had to fight for.

I spent years tolerating her guarded attitude toward me and the cold wall she kept between us.

I even took pride in thinking that she was just learning how to protect herself at a young age.

Until my crash.

When I was lying in the hospital with shattered bones, Shirley called me. There wasn't a single word of concern.

Her first words were pure annoyance: "Mom, can't you drive more carefully? If you're stuck in the hospital, what am I supposed to eat for dinner? Who's cooking? I hate takeout."

The blood in my veins turned to ice. It felt like being stripped naked in the middle of winter and having a bucket of freezing water dumped over my head.

My chest felt so tight I couldn't speak.

She demanded five hundred dollars through PayPal for dinner, then hung up immediately.

She never once asked how bad my injuries were, let alone bothered to visit me.

My seventy-year-old mother had rushed to the hospital in a panic, wiping away tears as she saw my casts.

Heartbroken and confused, she sighed, "Audrey, we raised that girl like the apple of our eye. We spared no expense, shielded her from every hardship, and never asked for anything in return... except for her to treat us like real family..."

My mother was devastated by Shirley's callousness, finally voicing the worry she had kept buried for over a decade:

"A woman really needs a child of her own flesh and blood. Audrey, don't hate your old mom for nagging, but... talk to Logan again. See if you two can have a baby."

My brow furrowed with deep sorrow.

My mother caught herself and quickly added, "Never mind, never mind. Don't stress yourself over it. I won't bring it up again."