He read it and then looked at me.
“How do you feel?”
“Happy,” I said. And sad.
He tried to hold my hand, but he stopped.
I cut the distance myself.
Aunt Rachel.
Maggie was still not. Nothing would change that.
But Lily wasn't the life my daughter never got. She was my niece: a sixteen-year-old girl, funny and stubborn, who loved mystery novels and left sarcastic notes on my desk.
For months, his face had made me see everything he had lost.
Now, when Lily walks into my classroom, I see Lily.
Nothing would ever change that.
