My daughter, who had just gotten a full ride to Berkeley, suddenly looked at me and said, "Mom, I think you're kind of selfish." I frowned, completely lost. "I mean," she continued, "I got into this amazing school, and all our friends and family are congratulating *you*, showering *you* with praise. But what about Dad? He gets nothing out of this." The air went out of my lungs. My heart felt like it had dropped into a block of ice. I stared at her, my face hardening. "And what exactly is it you think your father should be getting?" 1 Asking that question felt like swallowing glass. My daughter, Emily, didn't even look up from her video game. "It's not that I think he should get something specific," she said, tapping furiously at her iPad. "It just doesn't seem fair." Her tone was so casual, but the words were suffocating me. I took a deep breath, walked over, and snatched the iPad out of her hands. "Tell me," I said, my voice shaking slightly. "Tell me about your idea of 'fair.'" That's when she exploded. Emily shot up from the couch and tried to rip the tablet back from me. "What the hell? I'm in the middle of a raid! Are you crazy?" I threw the iPad to the floor. It shattered with a sickening crack. Emily’s face twisted with rage. She shoved me hard. "I was trying to be nice!" she screamed, her face inches from mine. "I was trying to spare your feelings, but I guess that's over now." "I'm your daughter. When I got that acceptance letter, even the mailman was telling you how lucky you are, what a great kid you raised. Relatives who haven't called in years are suddenly blowing up your phone." "It feels pretty good, doesn't it? All that attention. But what about my dad? Just because you two are divorced, he's not even allowed to come to my graduation party? He has to sneak around to give me a gift, like he's some kind of criminal, just so he doesn't upset you." "He's my *father*, Mom, not some stranger. This glory, this success? It's mine. I earned it. And you're getting all the benefits. Why shouldn't he get to share in it, too?" "Why do I have to be *your* trophy? Why do you get to control everything? I'm just telling you the truth. You're a selfish, possessive woman." Her words hit me like a physical blow. My mind went blank. My teeth were chattering, and the hand I pointed at her was trembling uncontrollably. But Emily didn't care. She was on a roll, venting years of stored-up resentment. "I know what you're going to say. You're going to talk about how Dad hurt you." "That was ages ago! How long are you going to hold that grudge? It's the 21st century, people get divorced all the time. Does every divorced couple have to be mortal enemies?" "He stopped loving *you*, Mom. He never stopped loving *me*. I'm his daughter, and I made him proud. I got into Berkeley…" The sharp, clean sound of a slap echoed in the quiet room. It took every last ounce of my strength. Emily clutched her cheek, her eyes wide with disbelief. Then came the shriek. "How could you? You have no right to hit me! You are going to regret this!" With one last hateful glare, she spun around, wrenched the door open, and slammed it behind her. My legs gave out. I stumbled backward and collapsed onto the floor. 2 I will never, ever forgive my ex-husband, Mark. When I was young, I fell for his sweet talk and empty promises. I married him against my parents' wishes, convinced he was my soulmate. After we were married, I emptied my savings account to help him start his construction business. And it worked. His business took off. Soon after, I got pregnant. The moment he heard, he moved his mother in from out of state, supposedly to "help with the baby." Behind my back, she sold her house and settled in for good. I tried to be okay with it. Then, I gave birth to a daughter. The sweet, doting mother-in-law vanished overnight. My gentle, loving husband didn't even show up at the hospital. Before I was even fully recovered, my mother-in-law ground sleeping pills into my food. While I was passed out, she took my baby and drove her to some distant relatives three states away, planning to give her up for adoption. When I woke up and found Emily gone, I went into a panic. I called Mark, screaming and crying. His voice was cold, distant. "Sarah, calm down. My mom talked to a psychic. Said the baby's bad luck for my career. Besides, she's just a girl. Let them have her. You need to focus on getting healthy so you can give me a real son." No matter how much I begged, they refused to tell me where my daughter was. They locked me in the house, telling me they’d let me out when I "calmed down." I broke a window and climbed out. I called the police. Once things got loud and official, they finally brought my daughter back. I filed for divorce immediately. Mark refused. The look in his eyes when he spoke to me was pure evil. "Divorce? And who's going to cook my meals? Who's going to give me a son? Who's going to be my mom's maid?" After that, whenever he had a bad day at work, he'd come home and take it out on me. On both of us. He'd hit me, hit our little girl, screaming that we were curses, a pair of black cats that ruined his luck. Eventually, he brought another woman home. She gave him the son he always wanted. He needed to marry her to get the boy on his insurance, so he finally agreed to the divorce. The price was steep. If I wanted to take my daughter, I had to walk away with nothing. No money, no house, no car. Just the clothes on my back and my little girl. I signed the papers without a second thought. I can't even think about those years without feeling sick. For a long time after, I'd wake up screaming, his snarling face haunting my dreams. Life was hard, raising Emily on my own. I worked double shifts at the diner and cleaned houses on weekends. But we had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and no one was hitting us. I poured everything I had into my daughter. I wanted her to have the best of everything I could afford. I was terrified she would end up like me, making one wrong choice that would ruin her entire life. So when she got that acceptance letter, that full ride, I was so happy I couldn't sleep for a week. I knew she had done it. She was going to be different. She had an education, a brilliant mind. She was going to build a life of her own. And now, her words were like a thousand tiny knives, stabbing me over and over in the heart. She knew. She knew everything he'd done to us. 3 I shouldn't have been surprised when Mark showed up at my door. "Sarah, I hear you've been putting your hands on my daughter," he sneered, stepping inside like he owned the place. "Getting a little bold, aren't you?" I had no patience for him. "Mark, you haven't claimed Emily as your child for her entire life. Who do you think you're fooling with this protective father act?" His eyes narrowed, and for a second, I saw the old rage. He took a step toward me, his hand raised, but his new wife, Jessica, grabbed his arm. "Honey, please," she said in a sickly-sweet voice. Then she looked at me. "Sarah, we know how hard you've worked. We really do. But you can't hit a child. They have feelings, you know. We parents can't be tyrants." She gave Mark a subtle look. He got the message. He pulled Emily behind him, wrapping an arm around her shoulders in a theatrical display of fatherly protection. "I know I made mistakes," he said, his voice dripping with false sincerity. "But I've learned from them. And now look at Emily! She's a star, our family's lucky charm. Of course I'm going to be there for her. Who else would be?" I didn't believe a word of it. But Emily did. "Mom, did you hear that?" she said, her voice pleading. "Dad knows he was wrong. I earned his approval, all by myself. Can't you be happy for me? Why do you always have to be so aggressive?" My face was a grim mask. "Emily, you know what he did to us. You know why he abandoned you. It was because you weren't a…" "Because I wasn't a boy?" Emily cut me off, her eyes flashing. "Yeah, I know. And why wasn't I? If I had been a boy, I wouldn't have been laughed at my whole life for not having a dad. I wouldn't have had to watch you struggle for every single penny." Tears welled in her eyes. "So tell me, Mom," she choked out, her voice thick with resentment. "Why couldn't you have just given him a boy?" I couldn't believe this was the child I had raised for eighteen years. My body started to shake with a fury I hadn't felt in a long, long time. I raised my hand. This time, Emily was ready. She shoved me, hard. I stumbled backward and fell to the floor. "You were going to hit me again!" she shrieked. Mark rushed forward and kicked me, once, twice, right in the ribs. "You bitch!" he roared. "You dare touch my daughter in front of me? God knows how you've been treating her behind my back! You don't deserve to be a mother!" The pain was sharp, sickeningly familiar. For a moment, I was back in that dark, hopeless place. I looked up at Emily. There was no pity in her eyes. Only a cold, hard hatred. Jessica stood next to her, one arm around Emily's shoulders, looking down at me with a smirk of pure triumph. I closed my eyes. My heart felt like a dead, gray stone in my chest. "Go, Emily," I whispered. "Just go. As far as I'm concerned, I don't have a daughter anymore." Emily didn't answer. Mark did. "Damn right she's going," he grunted. "She's my daughter. I'm taking her. Now go get her birth certificate and Social Security card." 4 "Her birth certificate?" Faced with my confusion, Emily finally spoke. "To make things fair, I'm moving in with Dad. You took care of me through high school. He's going to pay for my college." A bitter, humorless laugh escaped my lips. She actually believed that. She thought he was going to see her through four years at Berkeley. "So you need the paperwork to legally move in with him? To become part of his family?" Emily didn't say anything, which was all the confirmation I needed. Jessica piped up in her chirpy voice. "Well, Emily is Mark's daughter, after all. It's time for her to come home, to be part of the family officially. I was thinking, we shouldn't just update the custody papers. We should change her name, too. Back to her father's." Mark slammed his hand on the coffee table. "Good idea. She's a Vance, not a Hayes. Our Berkeley girl shouldn't be carrying your name." I looked at Emily. She stared at the floor, refusing to meet my eyes. So that was it. She was ashamed to be a Hayes. Ashamed to be my daughter. I laughed again, a hollow, empty sound. What was the point in fighting it? I pulled myself up, ignoring the throbbing in my side, and went to my room to get the documents. The car ride to the county clerk's office was a special kind of torture. Emily clung to Jessica's arm, calling her "Jess" this and "Jess" that. Jessica played her part perfectly, stroking Emily's hair and draping an arm over her shoulder. "You know," Jessica cooed, "I always regretted not having a daughter of my own. Now, with you, my heart is just so full." Emily shot a pointed look at me in the rearview mirror. "Some people don't feel that way. Some people just see me as a trophy to show off." The words should have hurt, but by then, I was numb. I was strict with her, it was true. I pushed her hard in school. I knew that for a girl from a background like ours, knowledge was the only weapon, the only way out. I see now that some lessons can only be learned the hard way. We got to the government building. It was surprisingly empty. When I handed over the documents, I felt a final pang of doubt. I looked at Emily one last time. "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? Change your name, everything?" She was five years old when I carried her out of that house. She couldn't remember all of it, but she knew enough. She’d tried to see Mark a few times when she was older. Each time he’d either insulted her or ignored her. I truly didn't understand her anymore. Was a father's approval—this fake, sudden approval—really that important? Or was she just that ashamed of me and our life? Emily hesitated, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. But Jessica just laughed. "Oh, Sarah, don't be so dramatic. Of course she's sure. Emily is a Vance. This is about her future. When she's at school, or when she gets married, no one will look down on her. Being part of a happy, stable family is always better than… well, you know." She gave me a pitying look. That did it. Emily's face hardened. "Yes," she said, her voice firm. "I want to change it." Jessica clapped her hands together. "Wonderful! You know what we should do? We should change it back to the first name we had picked out for you. The one that's in the family records." Emily nodded obediently. "Whatever you think is best, Jess." The process was quick. Mark filled out the form for Emily's new name. She didn't even bother to look at it. A few minutes later, a clerk's voice boomed across the hall. "Emily Hayes?" Emily practically skipped to the counter. "That's me." The clerk, a tired-looking woman with kind eyes, looked from the form to Emily, then back to the form. Her expression was strange, a mix of pity and confusion. "Are you sure, honey?" she asked softly. "Are you absolutely sure you want to change your name from Emily Hayes to Charity Vance?"
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