I’m a single mom.
My ex left years ago, and I’ve done everything I could to raise our daughter on my own.
I really thought I was doing okay.
Then one day, my daughter looked me in the eye and screamed, “You’re not my real mom! I want to live with HER!” Then she slammed the door and packed her things like I was nothing.
She went to live with her dad and his new wife-the woman who bought her a motorcycle without asking, who smiled while my daughter called her “the better mom”, who let her do whatever she wanted like rules didn’t matter.
SHE DIDN’T EVEN WANT ME THERE FOR HER BIRTHDAY.
But I still made her favorite cake.
I bought her the gift she’d been talking about for months.
Then, just after midnight, my phone rang.
Her name popped up and for a moment, I just stared at the screen — hands frozen, heart pounding.
After everything… I didn’t know if I should answer.
But I did.
Her voice was quiet. Shaky.
“Mom?” she whispered.
I closed my eyes. “Hi, baby.”
There was silence. Then a soft sniffle. “Can you… can you come get me?”
I didn’t ask why. I didn’t ask what happened. I just said, “I’m already on my way.”
When I pulled up to her dad’s house, she was sitting on the curb in her party dress, mascara smeared down her cheeks. No suitcase. No motorcycle. Just her, hugging her knees.
She looked up at me and broke into tears.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I thought I wanted freedom. I thought she understood me. But when the party ended and the music stopped, she didn’t even ask how I felt. She didn’t even notice when I left.”
I knelt beside her, pulled her into my arms — the way I did when she scraped her knees, the way I did when she had nightmares. And I whispered, “I noticed.”
That night, we sat at the kitchen table.
Just the two of us.
She ate the slice of cake I had saved. The one with the frosting she liked.
She opened the gift I had wrapped in her favorite color.
And when she looked at me with tired, red eyes and said, “You never stopped loving me, did you?”
I smiled through tears and said,
“Not for a single second.”
Because real love doesn’t walk away when it’s uninvited.
It waits on the porch light to come back on.
And when it does… it runs to the door.