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from across a room. Kristen already had a young son, and soon after the wedding, a baby girl joined the family.
Ivy watched, quietly, as her father began showing off family photos filled with smiling faces that didn’t include her. They became the group he introduced at gatherings. They were the ones pictured on the holiday cards.
Her mother also remarried.
Tanya’s new husband, Donnie, kept his voice low and steady, but there was something in his tone that made the house feel smaller whenever he entered a room. When Ivy’s baby sister arrived, the household shifted around the new rhythm.
Her mother’s attention narrowed to schedules, feedings, and early bedtimes. Conversations with Ivy grew shorter, more