Off The Record
I Adopted My Best Friend’s Daughter After She Died—On Her 18th Birthday, She Told Me To Pack My Bags
After the untimely death of my best friend’s daughter, I adopted her. For thirteen years, I devoted all of my time and affection to the girl. I gave up everything to ensure that she felt protected, chosen, and wanted. However, on her eighteenth birthday, the girl I loved more than life itself did something that sent me to tears I had never experienced before.
I’m Anna, and I was raised in an orphanage. Seven other girls shared a room where I slept. A few were adopted. A few of them grew old. However, Lila, my closest friend, and I stayed.
We were friends because we survived each other, not because we selected one another. We made a self-promise to have the kind of family we’d only seen in films one day.
Both of us reached the age of 18. Lila secured employment at a call centre. I began working as a waitress at an all-night diner. We shared a studio apartment with a bathroom so tiny you had to sit sideways on the toilet and mismatched furnishings from yard sales. However, it was the one location where no one could order us to leave.
Lila looked like she had seen a ghost when she returned home from a party three years later.
She declared, “I’m pregnant,” as she stood at our doorway at two in the morning. “And Jake’s not answering my calls.”
The following day, Jake, the man she had been dating for four months, blocked her number. No family to call. No parents to rely on. Only me.
Every three in the morning, every scan, and every doctor’s appointment, I held her hand. panic episode. I witnessed Lila’s eight-hour transformation from a scared girl to a worn-out mother while I was present in the delivery room when baby Miranda was born.
Whispering, “She’s perfect,” Lila held the small wailing creature to her bosom. “Look at her, Anna. She’s beautiful.”
Miranda had Lila’s nose and dark hair. She had a wrinkled, irate newborn beauty.
Lila said, “We did well,” while crying.
We made it work for five years. Lila’s medical billing job improved. Every time Miranda needed new shoes or had a birthday approaching, I took on extra work.
We learnt how to function as a family. Three of us against a world that never made any promises to us.
On movie nights, Miranda snuggled into my lap and referred to me as “Aunt Anna”. I would carry her to bed, thinking that this was probably what happiness felt like, while she fall asleep on my shoulder and drool on my shirt.
Then came that day of doom.
A delivery truck ran a red light when Lila was on her way to work. She was instantaneously killed by the impact. “She didn’t suffer,” the officer who informed me added, as if that would be helpful.
Miranda was five years old. She insisted on knowing when her mother would return.
I would respond, “She’s not, sweetheart,” and she would enquire again after twenty minutes.
Three days after Lila’s burial, social services arrived. At our kitchen table across from me was a woman holding a clipboard.
“There’s no one willing or able to take custody of Miranda.”
“What happens to her?”
“She’ll enter the foster system…”
“No.” The word sounded harsher than I intended. “She’s not going into the system.”
“Are you related to the child?”
“I’m her godmother.”
“That’s not a legal designation.”
I leaned closer and said, “Then make it legal.” “I’ll adopt her. Whatever paperwork you need, I’ll sign it. She’s not going into foster care.”
After examining me, the woman said, “This is a permanent commitment.”
I reflected on all the nights Lila and I had spent alone and afraid. Regarding the kind of upbringing I had vowed none of our children would ever experience.
“I understand.”
The adoption process took six months to complete. After six months of background checks, parenting seminars, and house visits, Miranda kept asking me if I was going to leave her too.
I vowed, “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart,” “You’re stuck with me.”
When the judge signed the documents, she was six years old. That evening, I sat her down and gave her the simplest explanation possible.
“You know I’m not your birth mum, right?”
Playing with the edge of her blanket, she nodded.
“But I’m your mum now. Legally. Officially. That means I get to take care of you forever, if that’s okay with you.”
She raised her gaze to me with Lila’s eyes. “Forever?”
“Forever.”
She threw herself into my embrace. “Can I call you ‘Mommy’ then?”
“Yes!” I sobbed as I gathered her in my arms.
It was messy and amazing growing up together. I was a young woman trying to learn how to be a mother on the fly. Miranda was experiencing grief in ways she was unable to express. We slammed doors and had screaming bouts. There were nights when she sobbed for Lila and I was unable to comfort her. On some mornings when I was extremely exhausted, I substituted orange juice for milk in her porridge, and we both burst out laughing.
However, we worked things out. One day at a time.
She declared she was joining the drama club when she got home on the first day of middle school.
When I said, “You hate being on stage,” I was perplexed.
She replied, “But there’s no harm in trying!”
For each play, I assisted her with running lines. went to all of the performances. When she landed her first major role in eighth grade, the crowd cheered her on. When she sang “Tomorrow,” I sobbed so hard that the woman sitting next to me offered me tissues. She was playing Annie.
I muttered, “That’s my daughter,” and it seemed like the most normal thing in the world.
There were new challenges in high school. Miranda’s heart was broken by boys. Drama between friends that needed late-night ice cream and bad advise I had no right to provide. When she received her first speeding ticket, she sobbed like a child again in my arms.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry. Are you mad?”
I stroked her hair back and said, “Terrified, yes. Mad? No.” “We all make mistakes, sweetheart. That’s what growing up is.”
In her junior year, she began working part-time in a bookshop. She would tell me about her customers and the books she had suggested when she returned home, smelling like coffee and paper.
She was growing into a self-assured, humorous, intelligent individual who enjoyed musical theatre and awful reality TV. She also assisted me in preparing Sunday night dinners.
Miranda was taller than me by the time she turned seventeen. When someone enquired about her family, she no longer flinched. She immediately referred to me as Mom.
She remarked, “You know I love you, right?” when we were doing the dishes together one evening after supper.
I gave her a startled look. “Of course I know that.”
“Good. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”
We seemed OK to me. I believed that the difficult part was over.
On a Saturday, she turned eighteen. We had a party at our flat for our neighbour, Mrs Chan, who always provided excellent dumplings, my coworkers from the café and pals from school.
Miranda laughed at every awful joke my manager told while wearing a stunning dress. She wished she wouldn’t tell me after blowing out her candles.
She responded, “You have to wait and see if it comes true,” and her smile was enigmatic.
After everyone had departed that evening, I was folding laundry in my room when Miranda unexpectedly showed up in the doorway, her look unreadable.
“Mom? Can we talk?”
I felt sick to my stomach as she spoke. I took a seat on the bed.
“Of course, dear. What’s going on?”
With her hands stuffed deep in her hoodie pockets, she entered carefully. She refused to look at me.
“I’m 18 now.”
“I know,” I grinned and answered. “Old enough to vote. To buy lottery tickets. To legally ignore my advice.”
She didn’t grin.
“I got access to the money this week. From my mom, Lila. The insurance payout. Her savings account. Everything she left me.”
My heart pounded. We had never actually discussed Lila’s finances. When I adopted Miranda, I created a trust and ensured that every penny remained unaltered until she reached the age where she could make her own financial decisions. I had even mentioned it to her from the beginning.
“That’s good,” I said for myself. “That’s your money, sweetheart. You can do whatever you want with it.”
At last, she turned to face me. Her eyes were almost frantic in their brightness.
“I know what I want to do with it.”
“Okay.”
She inhaled nervously. “You need to pack your things.”
The room swayed. I couldn’t stop the phrases from bouncing around in my mind.
“What?”
“You need to pack your things! I’m serious.”
I got to my feet. My legs were weak. “Miranda, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I’m legally an adult. I can make my own decisions now.”
“Yes, of course you can, but…”
Her voice was shaky but determined as she said, “So I’m making one.” “You need to pack your things. Soon.”
All of my childhood fears suddenly returned, including the conviction that love was fleeting, that people would go, and that I would always be one mistake away from losing everything.
My voice broke as I asked, “You want me to leave?”
She fumbled with something in her pocket and said, “Yes. No. I mean…” “Just read this first.”
She produced an envelope. She nearly dropped it because of how shaky her hands were.
I had no idea what else to do, so I took it. I took out a note in Miranda’s sloppy handwriting once I opened it:
“Mom,
Since the day I realised I had spent 13 years witnessing you sacrifice everything for me, I have been preparing this for six months.
You gave up romances because you didn’t want me to grow close to someone who might leave, you gave up promotions because you couldn’t work evenings, and you gave up the trip to South America you had been saving for since before I was born because I needed braces.”
You were too busy making sure I had a life to give up your own.
I used part of my mother Lila’s money to book us a two-month trip to Mexico and Brazil—every destination you’ve ever expressed a desire to visit and every excursion you’ve postponed.
You must thus pack your belongings.
In nine days, we depart.
Thank you for picking me each and every day for 13 years; I adore you.
Let me pick you again now.
“P.S. Your face is going to be hilarious, and I’m recording it.”
I raised my head. Miranda was in the hallway, staring at me with her phone, tears running down her cheeks despite her foolish smile.
“Surprise!” she muttered.
I started to cry and the letter dropped out of my hands.
Miranda came running in and embraced me. We were both crying as we stood there in my bedroom, hanging on to each other like if we were scared to part.
“You scared me,” I gasped out at last.
“I know. I’m sorry. I wanted it to be dramatic.”
She withdrew to give me a look. Her grin was brilliant, yet her face was drenched in tears. “So? Will you come?”
I put my hands over her face. I had reared this girl. She had developed into this woman. “Sweetheart, I’d follow you anywhere.”
“Good. Because I already bought the tickets and they’re non-refundable.”
I chuckled while crying. “Of course you did.”
“Also, I learnt Spanish and Portuguese. I’ve been using an app for months.”
“When did you have time for all this?”
She smiled and said, “When you thought I was watching Netflix.” “I’m sneaky like that.”
“You’re incredible.”
Over the next nine days, we worked together to plan everything. Miranda had previously done her homework on hotels, restaurants, tours, and flights. She had created colour-coded itineraries, backup plans, and spreadsheets.
I said, “You really thought of everything,” in awe.
“I wanted it to be perfect. You deserve perfect.”
The trip fulfilled all of my dreams and more. Miranda could genuinely understand the Spanish used by vendors calling out to us as we strolled through Mexico City’s markets.
We went swimming in cenotes, which are underground pools of pristine water that made it seem like we were in a different planet. We remained up too late dancing to music we didn’t know the words to while watching the sunrise over Rio de Janeiro.
We sampled too-spicy meals and giggled when I couldn’t take them. We found our way back together after getting lost in little communities. We created a million moments and snapped hundreds of photos.
We sat on the beach and watched the water one evening in a little Brazilian coastal town. It was the brightest I had ever seen the stars. Miranda rested her shoulder against mine.
She said, “Do you think my mother would be happy?” “With how things turned out?”
My best friend sprang to mind. About the girl who was with me and had survived the orphanage. About her five too-brief years as a mother.
“Of course, honey,” I replied. “I think she’d be really happy.”
Miranda patted my hand and said, “Good.” “I think so too. I think she’d be proud of both of us.”
As two people who had created a family out of nothing, we remained there until the stars went down, finally taking the time to simply be together.
I’m forty years old. I’ve lived my entire life anticipating people’s departure, bracing myself for desertion, and protecting my heart from the unavoidable letdown.
I have learnt from Miranda, though, that family isn’t about who remains because they have to. Who stays because they want to is the point. Each and every day. even under difficult situations. even if it comes at a price.
Thank you to everyone who has loved a child who wasn’t their own child. The best families aren’t created; you’re evidence of that. They’re constructed. One moment of love, one decision, and one sacrifice at a time.
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