My daughter spent weeks crocheting hats for sick children, and the day my husband left for a business trip, all her hard work disappeared — along with the patience I’d been saving for my mother-in-law. By the time Daniel returned, he made one thing crystal clear: nothing like that would ever happen again.
For ten years it had been just Emma and me. Her father died when she was three, and we built a rhythm of grief, healing, survival, and finally, peace. When I met Daniel, I feared he’d disturb it. He didn’t — he amplified it. Emma and he clicked instantly. He braided her hair, packed her lunches with little notes, read bedtime stories, and turned ordinary days into laughter-filled adventures. He stepped in with love, not obligation.
But Carol, his mother, never saw Emma as family.
“It’s sweet that you pretend she’s your real daughter,” she’d sneered once.
“Stepchildren never truly belong,” she said another time.
And the worst: “She must remind you of your wife’s late husband. That must be hard.”
Daniel shut her down every time, but the cruelty never stopped. We maintained distance, polite interactions, brief visits — nothing more.
We didn’t realize how far that distance needed to stretch until Carol crossed from unpleasant to cruel.
Emma, with her huge heart, had decided to crochet eighty hats for children in hospice care. She taught herself from YouTube, bought yarn with her allowance, and spent every afternoon perfecting her craft. Seventy-nine hats done, she planned to finish the last one the night Daniel left for his trip.
Continue reading on next page…