The door had slammed in my face, but I had not moved. I was still on the steps when I saw the brass handle turn again. The door creaked open just a little, as if the house was exhaling. She didn’t see me. I was off to the side—one step down, behind the stone column near the shrubs—but I saw everything.

A woman stepped forward. White hair. Soft grandmotherly eyes. She wore a delicate shawl draped over her shoulders and pearl earrings that caught the light. She looked gentle, fragile even—the kind of woman strangers call darling at the grocery store.

She was holding my daughter’s hand, and then I heard her say it.

“This is my mother,” my daughter announced to the group of reporters standing just beyond the foyer.

I froze.

“She lost everything to raise me,” my daughter continued. “I was in and out of foster care, but she never gave up. She worked three jobs just to send me to school, and when I was accepted into Stanford, she sold her wedding ring to buy my plane ticket.”

The cameras clicked. The crowd murmured. Someone wiped their eyes, and I stood outside, invisible. No, worse than invisible—replaced.