I spent years waiting for my children and grandchildren to remember I existed. Then I won the lottery, and suddenly everyone wanted to come home. For one night, I let them believe they knew why I had gathered them all together. They were wrong.
The first call came at 6:17 the morning after I won the lottery, while my coffee was still dripping and my hands were wrapped around the old “World’s Best Mom” mug my son gave me years ago.
I stared at my phone so long the screen went dark.
Not Denise, not Carla, and certainly not Benjamin.
Still, I checked it every morning.
***
At 6:15, I made coffee in that same blue mug. The gold letters had faded until “World’s Best Mom” looked more like “World’s Best Mm.”
“Well,” I told the mug. “At least you still remember me.”
I’d raised three kids on my own: Denise, Carla, and Benjamin. I worked two jobs, sat through fevers, heartbreaks, and school plays where I clapped too loudly because somebody had to.
Then they grew up, moved out, and started their own lives.
Somewhere along the way, they forgot about mine.
I had eight grandchildren.
Eight: Lily, Paige, Nara, Willow, Max, Jeremy, Josiah, and Joanna.
And still, every holiday, I set out one plate.
On my seventieth birthday, I sat in my kitchen with store-bought chocolate cake on my good china.
I lit one candle.
“Happy birthday, Debbie,” I said.
“Nope,” I muttered after a moment. I grabbed my purse. “We’re not doing this today. Let’s get out of here.”
So I drove to Rosebud Diner because the waitress, Kelly, knew my order, my birthday, and how to say my name like it mattered.
She looked up from the counter. “Miss Debbie! Birthday pie today?”
“I already cheated on you with grocery-store cake, sweetie,” I said. “But I came for cheesy pasta, bad coffee, and poor decisions.”
Kelly grinned. “Lottery-ticket poor decisions?”
“Why not? At seventy, I can either become reckless or start collecting decorative spoons.”
She printed out a ticket. “Feeling lucky?”
“No, honey. I’m just tired of being sensible and alone.”
A week later, I slid that ticket across her counter.
Kelly checked her screen, and her smile disappeared.
“At seventy, that’s always good advice.”
“No,” she whispered. “I mean it.”
The jackpot was the kind of money that made both of us go quiet. I made her read the numbers three times.
Then I said, “Call your manager before I faint on your clean floor.”
What happened next changed everything… continues on the next page.
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