Chapter 594

• My heart catches in my throat as we reach the double doors that hold my life inside and pause to wait. My heart and happiness await me; I’m about to take that step inside and finalize it very soon. Just a few more minutes of waiting, we will be going in there to end one chapter of my life and start a new one with the person I adore more than anything in the universe. My heart growing with excitement, and my nerves rising in anticipation, even though I know I have nothing to be frightened of.
• “Do you think she’ll be in there, Emma?” Sarah whispers behind me, and I shake my head, already knowing who she means without asking. Nothing registers in my heart at her question, not a flicker, no feeling about knowing my mother won’t be among the sea of friends and faces in that room to watch me marry my soul mate. I am long healed from the absence of her in my life. I feel a sense of freedom, much like the day, over a year ago, when I walked out of her building.
• She never made contact again, even when the papers reported my near-death experience and four-day coma at the hands of an intruder at ‘Billionaire Business Entrepreneur Jacob Carreros New Family Home.’ The media had a field day with that story and ran it for weeks, even long after my exit from the private care hospital and back home. My mother never graced me with a phone call or even a text or email that whole time. I didn’t have a single visit from her in my several weeks in recovery in the private hospital, not even a bunch of flowers or a get-well card. I ceased to care about her at all. It only helped me move on.