My mother kicked me out of the house the very night she found out I was pregnant. Five years went by and she never contacted me, nor had she ever seen her grandchild. Then, after meeting the baby’s father, she wanted to come back into my life.

He had hired investigators, searched social media, and spent thousands of dollars trying to track down the American girl he had never been able to forget. I told him about Janna. Then I showed him her picture.

He cried right there in the restaurant, sitting in my section under the soft yellow lights, with coffee going cold in front of him and my order pad shaking in my hand. His father had been pressuring him to settle down with someone from their world, but Alessandro had refused. He said he had kept thinking about the American girl who quoted Shakespeare while tipsy and laughed at his terrible jokes.

He wanted to meet Janna immediately. Within a week, he had set up a trust fund for her, bought us a house, and insisted on placing five years of back child support into a protected account. His family flew in from Switzerland and embraced Janna like she had always existed, surrounding her with warmth, gifts, and careful affection.

That was when my mother reappeared. She showed up at my new house with flowers and tears, saying she had been wrong. She said she had missed us so much.