When she saw the birthday decorations, she smiled.
“Eighteen.”
Emma nodded.
“I know.”
“Where did the time go?”
Emma looked at the photographs arranged on the mantelpiece.
There was Sophie as a baby, Sophie on her first day of school, Sophie holding a certificate, and Sophie laughing beside Michael in the garden.
“So much has happened,” Emma said.
Marta put an arm around her.
“And look at what you've built.”
Emma smiled.
She had spent years focusing on what she had not been able to give Sophie.
There had been holidays they could not afford.
Expensive activities that had remained out of reach.
Times when Emma had been too tired to attend an event or too worried about money to enjoy a celebration.
But looking around the room, she saw something else.
A home filled with memories.
People who cared about them.
A daughter preparing for a future full of possibility.
