lauren stared at the contract.
“Two point four million?”
Emma smiled.
“Yes.”
Lauren looked at her.
“For what?”
Clara answered:
“For our designs.”
Lauren laughed nervously.
“You expect me to believe you two built a fashion business?”
I nodded.
“They did.”
For years, Emma and Clara had designed clothes from our tiny apartment.
Because they couldn’t see the colors, they learned to understand fabrics through texture.
They memorized patterns through touch.
They developed their own system for matching materials, shapes, and designs.
And I helped them turn those ideas into reality.
At first, we sold only a few pieces online.
Then customers started talking.
Orders increased.
Then designers started contacting us.
Eventually, a major company offered $2.4 million to acquire their brand.
Lauren picked up the documents with trembling hands.
“You never told me.”
I looked at her.
“You left.”
She swallowed.
“I’m their mother.”
Clara suddenly spoke.
“Being our mother doesn’t mean you get to appear whenever something becomes valuable.”
Lauren's face hardened.
“I can give you opportunities your father never could.”
Emma shook her head.
“Dad gave us something you never did.”
“What?”
“A reason to believe we could do anything.”
Lauren stood up angrily.
“You’re making a huge mistake!”
Then she turned toward me.
“You’ll regret keeping them from me.”
She stormed out.
I thought that was the end.
It wasn't.
Two days later, a lawyer arrived at our apartment.
Lauren was suing us.
She claimed she deserved a share of my daughters’ company because she was their biological mother.
I felt my hands shaking.
But our lawyer calmly opened an old file.
“There’s something Lauren forgot,” he said.
Inside was a document signed eighteen years earlier.
It showed that Lauren had voluntarily abandoned her parental responsibilities.
But there was something else.
A letter.
A letter Lauren had written only weeks after leaving.
Emma asked me to read it aloud.
I did.
The letter said she wanted to come back…
but she was afraid that having two blind children would damage her acting career.
Emma went completely silent.
Then she whispered:
“She knew.”
Clara began to cry.
And then my phone rang.
It was our lawyer.
“Mark,” he said, “the $2.4 million offer has been withdrawn.”
My heart dropped.
“Why?”
He paused.
“Because they just increased the offer.”
“How much?”
“Five million dollars.”
I couldn't believe it.
Then he added:
“And Mark… you’re not going to believe who made the new offer.”
My stomach dropped.
It was Lauren’s company.
