He thanked his "real mom" at the reception I financed.

I swallowed. "Do you really need that much?"

He shrugged. "If you love me, yes."

Nineteen thousand dollars was my entire emergency savings — forty years of missed vacations, patched coats, hand-washed clothes, and weekends spent hemming neighbors' pants instead of going out.

The next morning, I went into the bank, signed the withdrawal slip and handed over my guarantee for her happiness.

At least, that's what I thought.

The wedding was magnificent, the way money makes things look better: crystal chandeliers, breathtaking floral arrangements, a dessert table longer than my first apartment. Silk napkins folded into perfect swans.

I was sitting at the back. The groom's mother — placed like a distant relative whom no one quite knew what to do with.

Then Ethan took the microphone.

He was beaming. He looked Carol straight in the eyes.

"I want to thank my real mother, Carol, for making this day perfect."

Laughter. Applause. Phones raised to record.

And two hundred faces turned towards the woman in coral, sitting alone.

I didn't get up.

I didn't cry.

I felt something inside me freeze, then cool down, then end.

The next morning, just hours before embarking on a luxury honeymoon in Europe, fully paid for by Carol, Ethan called.

"Mom, we were wondering... when could you help us with the deposit on the house?"

No thanks.
No apologies.
Just another request.

That was her last conversation with the version of me that begged to be loved.

That evening, in my modest apartment overlooking the highway, I opened a drawer whose existence Ethan was unaware of. Inside was a thick envelope: documents that my father, an immigrant, had left me decades before.