Rachel, on the other hand, was always my anchor. Steady. Sensible. Real. One of the things I admired most about her was how grounded she seemed. She wasn’t into frills—she owned exactly one pair of high heels, swore off lipstick as “sticky nonsense,” and had no time for flashy clothes or over-the-top routines. She liked to keep it natural, and that suited me just fine.
That’s why the first signs didn’t register as anything but cute quirks. Lila started strutting around in those very same high heels, wobbling like a tiny giraffe on stilts. “I’m just like Mommy,” she’d declare, smudged with lipstick, her curls bouncing as she twirled in Rachel’s old dress shirts like they were gowns.
