Every year on my birthday, I set the table for three — me, my husband, and my daughter, Karen.
Her seat has stayed empty for years.
She stopped speaking to me after the divorce, convinced I was the villain. She didn’t call. She didn’t visit. She simply vanished. And this year, on my forty-seventh birthday, something in me broke. I couldn’t stare at that empty plate again.
So I drove to my ex-husband’s house.
When he opened the door, he looked exhausted, hollow.
“Where’s Karen?” I demanded. “Is she okay?”
He swallowed hard.
“God… you really don’t know?”
Then he told me the truth: three months earlier, Karen had checked herself into a treatment center.
“Depression,” he said quietly. “She’s been struggling for years. She didn’t want you to see her like that. She thought she’d only disappoint you.”
He handed me an envelope in her handwriting.
“Mom. For your birthday.”
Inside was a card:
“I wasn’t angry at you. I was angry at myself. I didn’t know how to choose between you and Dad. I pushed you away because I felt broken. I’m getting help. Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to come home.”
I drove straight to the center.
When Karen saw me, she whispered, “Mom?”
I held her as she collapsed into my arms.
A year later, on my forty-eighth birthday, we set the table for three again.
This time… all the seats were filled.
