She listened, but she was seventeen and deeply hurt. Understanding doesn’t always heal wounds right away.
Days passed in silence. On the fourth day, I saw her standing on the porch with a small bag, hesitating.
I opened the door before she could knock.
“I don’t want to be your promise,” she said quietly. “I just want to be your daughter.”
I pulled her into my arms. “You always were.”
She cried then—really cried—and I held her as tightly as I could.
Sometimes love is misunderstood. Sometimes it takes time, truth, and pain to untangle what was never meant to hurt. But in the end, she came home not as a promise fulfilled, but as what she had always been: my child.
