Chapter 1

My ex-husband saw the words "autism" on my daughter's diagnosis and slapped me across the face without hesitation.

"You slut! You must have cheated while you were pregnant. Three generations of the Smith family, and we've never had a single idiot!"

He forced me to sign divorce papers, threw down five hundred dollars, and vanished, cursing: "Raising this money pit? What rotten luck!"

For that one-in-ten-thousand chance of recovery, I quit my director position, sold everything of value, and during the hardest times, even waited in line at the hospital to sell my blood.

Ten years later, my daughter finally spoke and got into a top high school.

Her homeroom teacher called to say a "successful entrepreneur" had been anonymously supporting my daughter and wanted to meet me at school today.

I rushed to the principal's office in a shirt washed white with age, only to find my ex-husband.

He had his arm around my daughter, pointing at me: "Principal, look at her—this neurotic parenting style is what messed up the kid. Now that the child's doing well, she wants to swoop in and take credit."

My daughter frowned in an uncharacteristic way: "Mom, could you please not dress like this when you come to school? The other students think I'm some trash picker's kid."

She handed me a bank card: "There's fifty thousand dollars here. Dad says it's compensation for your ten years of hard work. Use it to make yourself look decent instead of being filthy all the time. I'm embarrassed to even tell people you're my real mother."

I felt an unprecedented sense of alienation and anger toward my daughter. Had all these years of her attachment to me and resentment toward her father been fake?

I laughed.

"Fine. I'll grant you both your wish. I hope you won't regret this later."