One evening, she looked at herself for nearly a minute.
“I look like me,” she whispered.
I hugged her.
And then I made a mistake that would take me years to understand.
I told her, “Maybe now Dad will come home.”
Her expression changed.
She looked back at the mirror.
“Maybe,” she said quietly.
I thought I had given her hope.
In reality, I had helped her believe that the man who abandoned her might return if we could somehow make her look the way she had before.
For years, I blamed myself for saying those words.
I was a child trying to repair something I hadn’t broken.
My father never came home.
Life continued, because it always does.
My mother attended medical appointments. Some treatments helped, while others brought pain and disappointment. She learned how to care for her skin, how to dress comfortably, and how to manage the attention her scars sometimes attracted.
