I called him again and again. No answer. I convinced myself he was just angry. That he needed time. That blood would win in the end.

Two days later, he invited me to a family dinner.

I wore my nicest blouse. I brought dessert. I told myself this was reconciliation.

It wasn’t.

Halfway through the meal, he stood up. His wife went pale. The children sat quietly.

And then he said it.

“My family comes as a package,” he told me, his voice steady. “If you decided my oldest daughter isn’t your family, then you don’t deserve the others either.”

I couldn’t breathe.

He went on. Calm. Final.

“You don’t get to love them selectively. You don’t get to punish a child for a mistake she didn’t make.”

I left their house in tears, my dessert untouched on the table.

Now I sit alone in the same quiet house I once filled with laughter, wondering how everything unraveled so quickly.

I feel betrayed by my son. He let me live a lie for fourteen years. And now he’s cutting me off from the two grandchildren who are my blood.

But in the silence, a question keeps haunting me:

Did I lose my family the moment I decided blood mattered more than love?

And if so… is it too late to fix what I broke?