CNU-At my mother’s Sunday dinner, my sister offered to take my five-year-old daugh…

to pick out a little birthday surprise.”

Laya froze with delight.

“For me?”

“For you,” Taryn said. “There’s a toy aisle calling your name.”

My stomach tightened.

Laya’s birthday had been two weeks earlier. Taryn had brought nothing then except a card with no message inside. Now she wanted to take my daughter shopping on a school night after dinner?

“I don’t continue reading …