When my mom died six months ago, I went from being a 25-year-old engineer planning a wedding to becoming the only parent to my ten-year-old twin sisters. I thought I was lucky to have Jenna, my fianc\u00e9e, step in. She packed their lunches, braided their hair, sang bedtime songs. She even cried when Maya wrote her name as an \u201cemergency contact.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought it was love.<\/p>\n
Until last Tuesday.<\/p>\n
I came home early and heard Jenna in the kitchen \u2014 her voice sharp, cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t get too comfortable,\u201d she told the girls. \u201cI\u2019m not spending my 20s raising someone else\u2019s kids. When the social worker comes, you\u2019ll say you WANT to leave. Understand?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maya sobbed. Jenna snapped at her. Threatened to throw away her notebooks.<\/p>\n
I froze.<\/p>\n
Then she called her friend and dropped the rest of the truth \u2014 she wanted my mom\u2019s house, the insurance money, my name on the deed. She wanted the girls gone so she could \u201chave her life back.\u201d<\/p>\n
And she thought I\u2019d never find out.<\/em><\/p>\n But my mom had nanny cams.<\/p>\n So I planned a wedding Jenna would never forget.<\/p>\n In the ballroom, in front of everyone, I played the footage \u2014 Jenna mocking the girls, plotting to get rid of them, calling me \u201cna\u00efve.\u201d<\/p>\n Her world collapsed in minutes.<\/p>\n A week later, I adopted Lily and Maya.<\/p>\n That night at dinner, Maya whispered, \u201cWe knew you’d choose us.\u201d<\/p>\n And I did.<\/p>\n Every time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When my mom died six months ago, I went from being a 25-year-old engineer planning a wedding to becoming the only parent to my ten-year-old twin sisters. I thought I was lucky to have Jenna, my fianc\u00e9e, step in. She packed their lunches, braided their hair, sang bedtime songs. She even cried when Maya wrote …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1861,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions\/1861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}