I should have known better than to expect my family to share that moment.
Still exhausted, still shaking from labor, I reached for my phone and called my mother. I wanted, foolishly, to hear one kind word. Just one. She answered on the third ring, loud music blasting behind her.
“What is it, Melanie?” she snapped.
“I had the baby,” I said, my voice breaking. “Mom… I had a little girl.”
There was a pause, then a sharp laugh.
“I’m busy with your sister’s birthday party,” she said. “Why bring more trash like you into the world?”
For a moment, I thought I’d heard her wrong. I stared at Lily’s tiny face, certain no grandmother could say something so cruel minutes after her grandchild was born.
Then I heard my younger sister, Vanessa, shouting from somewhere behind her. “She seriously gave birth today? She ruined my special day again! God, Melanie, you’re so selfish!”
The room blurred. My stitches throbbed, my whole body felt hollow, and yet that pain was nothing compared to the humiliation burning through me.
