When they reached there, they made all the kids blow the candles one by one.
When my six-year-old daughter rushed forward to blow them, my parents shouted, “Go stand in that corner now.”
While all of them ate the cake and handed each child luxury gifts.
When my daughter pleaded, “Please, could I get something to eat?” my mother grabbed her roughly and wrapped her with a rope, tying her next to a pole, saying, “I don’t want to hear you anymore,” and left her there alone.
Then they all returned home without her.
When I asked, “Where is my daughter?” they didn’t bother to reply properly, just saying, “We are tired. Do not create drama. The kids need rest.”
I rushed to the venue immediately, where I found her still tied up, crying.
I called 911 and told them everything.
What I did next left them all pale.
Looking back now, I can see how blind I was to the pattern forming right under my nose.
The subtle digs at my parenting.
The way my mother’s lips would purse whenever my daughter walked into the room.
How my father would suddenly find his phone fascinating when she tried to show him her drawings.
I rationalized everything because family meant something to me.
Blood was supposed to be thicker than water.
Or so the saying goes.
My name doesn’t matter for this story, but my daughter’s does.
Natalie.
Six years old.
With auburn curls that bounced when she ran, freckles scattered across her nose like constellations, and a smile that could light up the darkest room.
She was everything good in this world wrapped up in tiny sneakers and princess dresses.
The trouble started three months after my divorce from Natalie’s father, though calling him that feels generous given his complete absence from her life.
Gerald walked out when she was barely two, deciding fatherhood wasn’t the adventure he’d signed up for.
The custody battle never happened because he simply vanished, leaving behind child support payments that arrived sporadically at best.
My parents, Linda and Frank Morrison, had always been critical.
Growing up meant enduring constant comparisons to my older brother Travis, who could apparently do no wrong.
He became a corporate lawyer, married a woman from the right family, produced two children who looked like they belonged in furniture cataloges.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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