I held her hand at every doctor’s appointment, every ultrasound, and every 3 a.m. panic attack. I was there in the delivery room when little Miranda was born, watching Lila go from a terrified girl to an exhausted mother in eight hours.
A mother delighted with her newborn baby | Source: Unsplash
“She’s perfect,” Lila whispered, holding the screaming baby against her chest. “Look at her, Anna. She’s beautiful.”
Miranda had dark hair and a nose identical to Lila’s. She was beautiful, with those wrinkles and that grumpy look of newborns.
“We did well,” Lila said through tears.
For five years, we made it work. Lila got a better job. I worked extra shifts whenever Miranda needed new shoes or her birthday was coming up.
We discovered how to be a family… the three of us against a world that never promised us anything.
Silhouette of two women and a girl watching the sunset from a bench | Source: Midjourney
Miranda called me “Aunt Anna” and would climb onto my lap during movie nights. She’d fall asleep on my shoulder, drooling on my shirt, and I’d carry her to bed thinking that maybe this was what being happy felt like.
Then that fateful day arrived.
Lila was driving to work when a delivery truck ran a red light. The impact killed her instantly. The officer who told me said, “She didn’t suffer,” as if that would help me.
Miranda was five years old. She kept asking when her mother would return.
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