When Brielle’s daughter begins drawing pictures of “two mommies,” a quiet suspicion unravels into a heartbreaking revelation. What begins as an innocent mystery soon cracks open the past Brielle thought she’d buried, forcing her to confront the one person she never expected to return… and the truth her daughter deserves to know.
I used to believe I knew everything about my daughter.
Brittany is eight. She’s bright, curious, and wildly creative. She builds entire worlds out of construction paper and pipe cleaners, she narrates stuffed animals’ lives like soap operas, and she makes up songs about brushing her teeth.
Her imagination is endless.
But lately, she’d been coming home with things that didn’t belong to her.
First, it was a homemade beaded bracelet, looped too tightly to have come from the school craft bin. Then, a lip balm she would never have picked herself, cotton candy, of all things. There were small packets of seaweed snacks and fruit gummies I hadn’t packed.
When I asked, she would shrug casually.
“Girls from class gave them to me,” she’d say.
Look, kids trade stuff. I knew that well, I mean, I used to trade hair clips when I was younger. So, while it’s not unusual, something gnawed at me. A strange feeling that I couldn’t place.
Then came the drawings.
At first, I smiled when I found them.
Brittany had always been expressive through her art. She’d once drawn our entire family as cupcakes, each of us with different frosting. I was the one with the sprinkles.
Her drawings were a window into how she saw the world… vibrant, playful, and full of love. Stick-figure stories lined the refrigerator door, and colored pencil forests filled her notebooks. Her imagination had always been her safe place.
So when I spotted a page half-tucked into her math workbook, an innocent picture of a girl holding hands with two women, I didn’t think much of it. I figured that it was me and perhaps her teacher, Miss Kayla.
Brittany was always drawing the people she loved most. I smiled, closed the book, and went on with my day.
It was taped inside her notebook, right in the middle of her doodle section. The same two women stood tall beside a small girl. But this time, one of them was labeled “Mom”… and it wasn’t me.
“Relax, Brielle,” I told myself. “She’s just bein creative…”
But still, a strange, hollow chill moved through me. My eyes scanned the lines over and over, trying to make sense of them. I told myself maybe it was just a character. But the drawing didn’t feel random. It felt intimate.
I stared at the paper until my eyes blurred.
That night, I waited until dinner was cleared and the bedtime chaos had quieted. Brittany was sitting cross-legged on the rug, building a castle out of LEGO blocks, humming softly.
I crouched beside her, trying to keep my voice light and bright.