𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄- 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐃

𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐎𝐍𝐄

𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐄𝐗𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐃𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐋𝐘, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐑. She held her breath the entire time, hearing exclamations on the other side of the door, followed by the sound of footsteps. The door in front of her opened with a creak a moment later, and a frail looking older woman stood on the other side of it. 

"Can I help you?" She asked Mallory with a somewhat confused expression on her face. 

Her mother had aged significantly, which she supposed made sense since she hadn't seen her family or been back to this house since she was thrown out at sixteen. Her face was pretty much the same, only now it was littered with wrinkles and age spots, but it was still her mom. Her mother's face still matched her own. Her hair had lightened, but it was still cut the same way as it always was, just above her shoulders. 

"I-" Mallory paused, at a loss for words. The entire ride here, she'd practiced exactly what she was going to say once she got there. It had been over ten years since she'd been here, and she wasn't even sure why she'd come. Mallory supposed she wanted to see if something had changed, if they could finally learn to accept her and love her. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. "I shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry," she said with a small smile. Mallory didn't know what to expect, but she thought that her mother would have at least recognized her. Although she supposed she looked a lot different now than she did at sixteen. 

"Mallory," her mother called out, and she froze in place before she had a chance to walk away. "Would you like to come in?" She asked hesitantly. She exhaled the breath she'd been holding in and nodded her head. Walking into the house again felt like walking into a museum. She wondered how her mother had managed to keep everything exactly the same these last few years. She followed her mother to the kitchen, trying not to think about what happened the last time she was here. How her mother had struck her across the face and threw her out, and how her father had stood there and watched, threatening to call the police. 

Mallory stopped in the hallway when she passed the living room. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but the first thing she noticed was that every trace of her ever being here was gone. The pictures of her that once sat on top of the fireplace were gone, now replaced with photos of people she no longer recognized. 

"Mama, who's at the door?" A little girl called out. She couldn't have been more than six or seven years old, and Mallory frowned. Given her mother's age, she knew that the child couldn't have been hers biologically, but she couldn't admit the sting she felt hearing someone else call her mother mama. 

"Go on and play outside for a little while, Anne," her mother called out. Then, she looked over at Mallory with a blank expression and gestured for her to take a seat at the kitchen table while she put on a pot of tea. "Anne's not mine," she spoke up after a moment. "My niece had a baby, and she knew that there would be risks carrying the pregnancy to term." She smiled fondly as she looked out the window and watched the girl run around the backyard with a big grin on her face. 

Mallory supposed that her mother finally got the perfect daughter she wanted all along. 

"But she didn't care," she added. "She made me promise that if anything were to happen to her, that I'd watch over her baby like my own." Mallory twisted the ends of her hair, feeling the most awful she had in a long time. It was clear that her mother had moved on and forgotten all about her, yet Mallory couldn't seem to forget about her, even after being treated so horribly. "She didn't make it off of the table. The doctor's said that Anne was a miracle baby, that God sent her to us as a gift, and that we should cherish her."

"She seems like a good kid," Mallory said, her voice shaky. 

"She's perfect," her mother said, the admiration in her voice clear as day. The words stung. The kettle began to whistle loudly, and Mallory cleared her throat as she watched her mother struggle to pour the tea due to her shaking hands. She thought of offering to help, but she couldn't get the words out.