I didn't know where to go.
Then the front door opened.
A woman stood there with her hands on her hips.
She was my aunt.
Everyone in the village was afraid of her.
My mother used to say even stray dogs crossed the street when they saw her coming.
I expected her to send me away.
Instead, she stared at me.
“What are you standing there for?”
I began crying.
She rolled her eyes.
“Get inside before you freeze to death.”
That was how I found my first real home.
My aunt wasn't gentle.
She shouted when I broke dishes.
She complained when I spent too much money on school supplies.
She woke me early and taught me how to cook, clean, garden, and work.
But every night, she checked whether I had eaten.
Every winter, she bought me warm clothes before buying anything for herself.
She never once said she loved me.
She didn't need to.
At sixteen, I started working after school.
At eighteen, I received a scholarship and moved away for college.
My aunt gave me three hundred dollars.
It was all she had saved.
“Don't come crying home if you quit,” she warned.
I smiled.
“I won't.”
College was difficult.
I worked in restaurants.
I cleaned offices.
I slept four hours a night.
Sometimes I wanted to give up.
But every time I remembered standing alone on that road at five years old, I continued.
I had survived without my parents.
I could survive anything.
After graduation, I joined a small investment company.
Ten years later, I became its CEO.
Then I built my own company.
Grant Capital became one of the fastest-growing investment firms in the country.
The little girl nobody wanted now controlled millions of dollars and employed hundreds of people.
Then one morning, my assistant placed two files on my desk.
I looked down.
The first company was owned by my father.
His business was collapsing.
He needed investors.
The second file contained my mother's name.
She had divorced the man she left with years ago.
After a series of failed business ventures, she was drowning in debt.
Both had applied for financial assistance from my company.
I almost laughed.
Life had a strange sense of humor.
My father arrived first.
He looked older.
Smaller.
He smiled politely and extended his hand.
“Thank you for meeting with me, Ms. Grant.”
I looked at his hand.
I didn't take it.
He began explaining why his company deserved my investment.
I listened quietly.
Then I asked him one question.
“Do you remember a little girl you left beside a road twenty-five years ago?”
His face changed.
Slowly.
Painfully.
My mother arrived later that afternoon.
She entered my office confidently.
Then she saw me.