I adopted my best friend’s daughter after her sudden death. When she turned 18, she told me, “YOU HAVE TO PACK YOUR BAGS!” I spent my childhood in an orphanage. No parents, no family, no one to recognize me. My best friend, Lila, had the same story.

A mother overjoyed by her newborn | Source: Unsplash

“She’s perfect,” Lila murmured, clutching the screaming baby to her chest. “Look at her, Anna. She’s beautiful.”

Miranda had black hair and a nose identical to Lila’s. She was beautiful, with her wrinkles and her grumpy, newborn look.

“We did the right thing,” said Lila, crying.

For five years, we managed to get by. Lila found a better job. I worked overtime whenever Miranda needed new shoes or her birthday was approaching.

We discovered what it was like to be a family… the three of us against a world that had never promised us anything.

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