My Mother Made My Six-Year-Old Adopted Daughter Clean EveryOne’s Dirty Dishes on ChristmAS While Her “Real” Granddaughters Unwrapped Expensive Gifts in the Next ROOm.

I picked her up immediately.

“No, sweetheart. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Then I remembered the drawing tucked inside my coat.

Clara had drawn our entire family.

Grandma. Grandpa. Lily. Maya. Me.

But she had placed herself standing far away from everyone else.

I had assumed it was a childhood imagination.

Now I understood.

Or at least I believed I did.

Because as I carried her toward the hallway, I noticed the closed door of my private study.