The day Dad died, a part of me went with him. I sat in his hospital room, holding his hand as the machines went quiet.

The nurses warned me it would happen soon, but nothing really prepared me for that moment. The cancer took him fast: three months from diagnosis to the end. Just like that, the person who'd saved my life was gone.

The hospital room felt too small, too sterile. I remembered how Dad had always hated hospitals, but in those final weeks, he'd faced everything with the same quiet strength he'd shown his whole life.

Even near the end, he'd squeeze my hand and try to crack jokes about the terrible hospital food.

"Catherine," he'd said the night before he passed, his voice barely above a whisper, "promise me you'll keep living. Really living, not just getting by."

I didn't cry right away after he passed. Instead, I found myself thinking about Mom, of all people. Funny how trauma works; one bad memory leads to another, like dominoes falling in your mind.

I hadn't seen her since that night when I was 15 when she'd kicked me out of the house with nothing but a backpack and some half-baked speech about teaching me responsibility.

"You need to learn how to be an adult," she'd said, arms crossed, blocking the doorway to my room. "The world isn't going to coddle you forever. This is for your own good."

The world hadn't coddled me at all, actually. But Dad had been there, showing up at the shelter where I'd ended up within days. I later learned he'd been frantically searching for me immediately he heard what happened.

Mom had kept us apart for years before that, feeding me lies about how he didn't care about me and didn't want to see me. She'd tell me he'd canceled every time he tried to visit. Every birthday card he sent mysteriously got "lost in the mail."

That night in the shelter changed everything. Dad took one look at me, hugged me tight, and said, "I'm so sorry kiddo. I'm here now."

And he was until cancer decided otherwise. He helped me finish high school, cheered at my graduation, and supported me through college. We made up for lost time with weekend fishing trips and silly traditions like our annual Christmas movie marathon.

I handled the funeral arrangements in a daze. Dad's siblings helped, especially Aunt Sarah, his younger sister.

The funeral home's director kept asking questions I couldn't answer — what kind of flowers, what music, which photos to display. Sarah stepped in when I froze up, somehow knowing exactly what Dad would have wanted.

The will was straightforward: Dad left everything to me, but I shared it with his siblings. It felt right. They were family, after all. Real family. The kind that shows up, stays, and loves without keeping score.

I thought I'd processed everything and started moving forward. At 24, I had a stable job, my own house; a life I'd built from scratch. Then Mom showed up at my door, wearing a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"My baby!" she exclaimed like we were in some Hallmark movie about family reunions. "Look how successful you've become!"

I stood in the doorway, frozen. She looked older, but that calculating look in her eyes hadn't changed. Within minutes, she was already taking shots at me.

"Ten years without a single call," she said, shaking her head. "Do you know how much that hurts a mother? To be abandoned by her own child?"

My stomach churned.

"Would you like to come in for lunch?" I heard myself ask, more out of ingrained politeness than anything else.

Dad had taught me to be kind, even when it's hard. "Kill 'em with kindness, kiddo," he used to say with a wink.

Over sandwiches I barely touched, she revealed how she'd found me.

"I visited Sarah after I heard your father had passed," she said, picking at her food. "I wanted to get back something I'd given him when we first got married. Sarah mentioned you'd bought a house in the area."

"How thoughtful of you to drop by," I said, keeping my voice neutral.

But I knew there was more coming. There always was with her. Every kind word was just bait, hiding the hook beneath.

Sure enough, her face darkened.