He never said my name.

Not once.

Five minutes passed.

I sat at table four with my hands folded.

A family friend looked at me twice.

The second look carried pity.

That was worse than being omitted.

This night is not about you.

I repeated it silently.

Greg finished to applause and handed Hannah the microphone.

She stood.

“Thank you, Dad.”

Then she looked toward Audrey’s photograph.

“I loved my mom with every piece of my heart.”

The room quieted.

“I still do.”

She touched the pearls in her braid.

“She is part of my bones.”

Karen began crying.

“Nobody replaces that.”

I lowered my eyes.

Exactly.

Then Hannah continued.

“But losing a parent young teaches you something strange.”

She paused.

“Life keeps asking things from you even when the person you want most isn’t there to answer.”

She looked across the room.

“You still need somebody to show you how to iron a collar before your first interview.”

People laughed softly.

“Somebody to sit beside you at urgent care at midnight because you ignored a cough for six days.”

My heart shifted.

“Somebody to tell you failing one chemistry exam does not mean you have to drop out of college and become a goat farmer.”

“That was a real plan,” Ethan called.

Laughter spread around the room.

Hannah smiled.

Then she looked directly at me.

“Tonight I want to thank my dad.”

She turned toward Greg.

“And my dad’s wife, Jenna.”

My dad’s wife.

Technically correct.

Painfully distant.

I prepared myself for a polite acknowledgment.

Then Hannah said:

“I chose that phrase on purpose.”

I looked up.

“When Jenna married my dad eight years ago, she had every possible reason to walk into our house and demand a role.”

Nobody moved.

“She could have asked me to call her Mom.”

My throat tightened.

“She never did.”

Greg went still.

“She could have removed my mother’s photographs because they made things awkward.”

Hannah shook her head.

“She framed one that had been damaged.”

I had almost forgotten that.

An anniversary photograph of Audrey and Greg had broken during a move.

I replaced the frame.

“She could have complained when fourteen-year-old me ignored her.”

People laughed.

“I was terrible.”

“You were fourteen,” I whispered.

She heard me.

“Yes, but I was committed to the role.”

More laughter.

Then she grew serious.

“I once told Jenna she had no right to ask where I had been because she wasn’t my mother.”

Greg looked at me.