“I thought you stopped replying,” she whispered, “because you didn’t love me anymore.” I pulled her into my arms and held her as tightly as I have ever held anything.

“I never stopped loving you, Maya.

Not for one single second of one single day.” She buried her face in my shoulder.

“But you never came home either,” she said.

And that, I could not answer.

Because that part was not my mother’s lie.

That part was mine.

Chapter 9 — The Moments I Missed