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The girls rushed toward me.
Ava hugged me first.
Claire wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
June knelt in front of me.
“I know you always say you gave up twenty-two years for us,” she whispered.
I shook my head.
“I don’t regret it.”
“We know.”
She smiled.
“But that’s why we wanted to give something back.”
I looked at them.
“What did you do?”
They exchanged a glance.
Ava reached into her gown pocket.
She pulled out three keys.
“Remember the apartment above the hardware store?”
I laughed.
“How could I forget?”
“You always said you wished you could have bought that building.”
“I did.”
Claire smiled.
“So we bought it.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
June laughed.
“We’ve been saving for years. Scholarships, jobs, internships, everything. We pooled our money.”
Ava pointed toward the audience.
“And we got help.”
I looked around.
The dean was smiling.
Several professors were clapping.
Then I noticed my old neighbor sitting near the back.
The same woman who had told me I couldn’t raise three babies alone.
She was crying.
I started laughing.
“You people are unbelievable.”
June took my hand.
“We turned the building into something.”
“What?”
“A family center.”
I didn’t understand.
She explained.
The first floor would become a childcare and community resource center.
The second floor would provide temporary housing for young parents who needed somewhere safe to stay.
And the apartment where I had raised them?
They wanted me to have it.
“For what?” I asked.
Ava smiled.
“For whatever comes next.”
That sentence hit me harder than everything else.
Because I had spent twenty-two years thinking about what they needed next.
Their next meal.
Their next school year.
Their next doctor appointment.
Their next birthday.