Mia:My heart didn’t just race. It stopped.Mama.The word echoed in my head like a gunshot, loud and impossible to ignore. I felt it in my chest, in my throat, in the way my fingers suddenly went numb around the cone I was holding. And if I was about to drop the cone before, I knew very well that it was harder for me to hold it now…No.No, no, no… not here, not in front of him, not like this.“Mama?” Rosalyn tugged on my hand again, her voice small but impatient this time. “My ice cream is gonna fall…”Her voice snapped me back.Focus.I forced my hands to steady, crouching down quickly in front of her.“Here, baby,” I said, placing the cone in her hands, adjusting her fingers carefully so she wouldn’t drop it. “Hold it like this, okay? And don’t tilt it. And be sure to eat it beside your Auntie Brenda to make sure that you don’t drop it, okay?”She nodded eagerly, already smiling again, completely unaware of the way my world had just shattered. “Thank you, Mama!”I swallowed hard.
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