As I walked out of the meeting, my phone began ringing nonstop. Austin called first, but I ignored it. Then Sheila called, and I let it go unanswered. My mother tried next, and I allowed the phone to keep ringing. Finally, a text arrived from my father.
“We saw the news,” Lawrence wrote. “Your mother has been crying. We need to sit down together as a family.”
I opened the online article. My picture appeared beneath a bold headline: “Summer Morales Chosen to Lead Multi-Million Dollar Dalton Foundation Initiative.”
I smiled, though not because of them. Suddenly they remembered who I was. Suddenly I had become their daughter again.
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Samantha entered my office carrying two cups of coffee.
“Everything alright?” she asked.
“They just realized I’m not sleeping beneath a bridge,” I replied.
She immediately understood.
“So what will you do?” she asked.
