Their Sister, Not Their Mother

I didn’t leave them because I lacked love. I left because if I’d stayed, I would have died inside that house, and I’d have been no good to anyone.

It took intense therapy for me to understand that I was their sister, not their mother. The burden of their survival was never supposed to be on my shoulders.

Two months after the arrest, the eighth baby was born while Lydia was in state custody. A little girl named Faith.

When I looked through the glass at the hospital nursery, I felt a heavy sadness for the mother she’d never truly know — and an immense wave of relief for the burden she would never have to carry.

The cycle of servitude had been broken.

On my seventeenth birthday, Aunt Helena threw a small party in her kitchen. No extravagant gifts. A slightly crooked chocolate cake and two friends from the library club.