“No,”
I cut her off before Victor could respond.
“I’ll handle my own wardrobe. Thank you.”
Victor sighed heavily, a sound he’d perfected over decades of disappointment.
“You’ve always been stubborn, just like your mother.”
The words hit different now. Just like your mother. He’d said it a thousand times before. I’d always assumed it was an insult. Victor’s way of saying I was difficult, emotional, impractical. But sitting there with my mother’s unopened envelope waiting at home, I heard something else underneath. Something that sounded almost like fear.
That night, I dreamed of my mother. Not the vague impressions I usually carried—the jasmine perfume, the soft voice reading bedtime stories. This was a memory sharp and clear, surfacing after decades of burial. I was four years old. My mother and I were in my bedroom, the one with the yellow curtains she’d sewn herself. She was brushing my hair, counting each stroke like she always did. 98. 99. 100.
“There, my beautiful girl.”
She wrapped her arms around me from behind, and we looked at our reflection in the mirror together—her dark hair and my lighter brown, her warm eyes and my blue gay ones.
“Mama, why do I look different from Daddy?”
She went still, just for a moment.
“Because you look like me, sweetheart, and that’s a good thing.”
“Does Daddy think it’s a good thing?”
She didn’t answer right away. When she spoke again, her voice was fierce.
“Listen to me, Sabrina. You are my greatest gift. No matter what anyone says, no matter what anyone does, you are loved. You are wanted. You are enough. But daddy—your daddy will learn. I’ll make sure of it.”
Footsteps in the hallway. We both looked up. Victor stood in the doorway watching us with an expression I was too young to read. My mother met his gaze, didn’t flinch.
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