The Receipt

I found the receipt in a drawer today

and suddenly I was eight again,

suddenly I understood what my mother meant

when she said the toy came from someone special,

the way she kept her smile too still.

It was there in the corner—her handwriting,

small and careful. The store name. The date.

The price.

I'd believed so long that I made it work,

the story fit the way we needed it to,

my mother nodding along, letting me keep

the version where magic was still possible,

where someone I'd never see could think of me.

Finding the receipt wasn't the betrayal.

The betrayal was understanding that she'd let me have it

as long as I could, and then she'd let me find the truth

in a way I could almost forgive.

I put the toy back in the closet. It's still there.

I haven't told my daughter yet.