The first time Riley called me “Mom,” it was an accident. We were feeding ducks at the park when she pointed and shouted, “Look, Mom—the brown one likes me!” The word hung between us, precious and fragile.
Carmen had been gone three months by then—vanished the day after losing custody, leaving behind only a half-empty closet and unpaid credit card bills. Riley didn’t seem to miss her.
At night, we pore over Thomas’s old photo albums. “Tell me about when Daddy was little,” she begs, and I weave stories from snippets neighbors have shared. Sometimes she cries. Sometimes we both do.
But in the morning, there are pancakes shaped like hearts and new memories to make. When people say Riley looks like me, we just smile. Love, after all, is the most powerful resemblance of all.
