Chapter Title

You are not their mother, 

You are not my mother, 

You're not a mother, 

You can never be a mother… 

Weeks after the altercation with both Mike and my nephew, those words they'd left in wake of their cruelty still haunted me in both my sleep, my subconscious and even my wide-eyed consciousness. 

I had been severely shocked at Stephen's outburst, in fact, I still was astonished, and it all led me to wondering how long he had held all those poisonous thoughts in his head. Was it because I was too strict?—not that I didn't give him his space or anything—or was it that I was not doing the raising thing well?