For years, the silence in our home was built of unspoken grief and the echoes of five lost pregnancies.

The breaking point arrived on the night of their senior prom. I stood in the doorway of Ruth’s room, my phone ready to capture the traditional photos of her in her gown. She looked ethereal, but her face was a mask of cold fury. Before I could offer a compliment, she told me I wasn’t coming to see her off, and that after the dance, she was leaving for good. My heart stopped. When I pressed her for a reason, the truth came out like a physical blow.

“Stephanie told me the truth about why you got me,” Ruth said, her voice trembling. “She told me about your prayer. That I was just a deal you made with God to get your real daughter. I’m just a payment, aren’t I?”

The room turned icy. I sat on the edge of her bed, the weight of a seventeen-year-old secret finally crushing me. I admitted that I had made the promise, but I tried to explain the nuance of a desperate heart. I told her about the bathroom floor, the five miscarriages, and the raw, unrefined grief that had led to that vow. I tried to explain that Stephanie didn’t cause me to adopt her out of obligation; rather, the love I felt for Stephanie had taught me that my heart had enough room for another. The promise had shown me the way, but the love was entirely hers.

But Ruth was seventeen and wounded, and at that age, the truth often matters less than the hurt. She left for prom alone and didn’t return that night. John and I sat at the kitchen table until dawn, the silence of the house magnified by her absence. As the sun began to rise, Stephanie emerged from her room, her face swollen from crying. She confessed that she had overheard me discussing the prayer on the phone with my sister months ago. In the heat of a particularly vicious argument with Ruth, she had weaponized that information, twisting it to make Ruth feel like an interloper. She hadn’t realized the weight of her words until the door slammed and the house went cold.