How they stayed up until three in the morning arguing over equations.
How Grandma once drove six hours through snow to get a specialized component.
How my father hated how close they were.
How he mocked them as “the lady scientists.”
How Mom became pregnant with me.
How Dad began asking whether she really wanted strangers raising her baby.
How he warned that ambitious women destroyed families.
How she withdrew from her program.
How she told herself it was temporary.
Then Marisa came.
Then years passed.
Then bitterness hardened.
“You were five when you solved a number puzzle Opal gave you,” Mom said.
“I remember.”
“She looked at me afterward and said, ‘She’s got your brain.’”
Mom stared at the floor.
“I hated you for being proud.”
I felt tears slide down my face.
She whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
It was not enough.
But it was the beginning of something that might someday become enough.
