As my daughter shoved me against my own kitchen wall and said, “You’re going to a nursing home. Or you can sleep with the horses in the paddock. Pick one,” I didn’t cry.

When she said she wanted to study business administration in the capital, I sold the jewelry my mother left me to cover her first semester in New York City. That’s where she met George—wealthy, polished, and clearly disdainful of our simple life. The first time he visited, he wrinkled his nose at the small house, the horses, the chipped paint.

But Alexis loved him, and I wasn’t going to stand in the way of her happiness.

They married three years later, and I used my last savings to help pay for the wedding. George didn’t even thank me—just flashed that insincere smile and drifted back to his fancy friends. That was the first time I felt like I was losing my daughter—not to marriage, but to a world I could never belong to.

For a few years, things were calm. Alexis visited now and then, always pressed for time, always glancing at her watch. I pretended not to notice the widening gap between us.

Then, two years ago, everything shifted.

Jim died in a car accident and left a will. I never imagined the man who abandoned us had anything saved. But in his years away, he had built a small fortune through investments. And, for reasons I’ll never grasp, he left everything to Alexis. Two hundred thousand dollars—a small miracle for us. Continue reading…