12 Years After Abandoning Us, My Mom Returned and Asked for a Second Chance—Dad Said Yes… But What About the Woman Who Stood by Him All These Years?

The rain poured down as if it wanted to wash away the entire city.

I stood by the window of our home in Portland, watching the drops of water roll down the glass, blurred like the memory of my birth mother—Catherine, whom I hadn’t seen since I was ten.

That night, twelve years ago, she left without a goodbye, abandoning …