Friends.
Where she lived.
She answered cautiously at first.
Then more easily.
She had spent years imagining me as a woman who would hate her if I ever found out.
I told her that was Susan and Michael’s fear, not my decision.
She cried.
I did too.
That was the sideways turn I never expected.
Susan’s confession did destroy a friendship.
But it also introduced me to someone who had been forced to exist just outside my life.
I did not become Emily’s mother.
I did not become her aunt.
I did not force a label.
We were simply Linda and Emily.
That was enough.
When I returned home, the house felt unfamiliar.
Susan’s spare key was still on the hook by the back door.
I removed it.
Not angrily.
Practically.
The lock was changed the next morning.
I packed the things Susan had left over the years.
