Just weeks before my wedding, my stepmother shattered the one thing I had left of my late mother—her treasured crystal glass set. She stood there, broom in hand, wearing that smug little smile, convinced she’d erased Mom from my life forever. What she didn’t know was that she’d just triggered her own unraveling.
I’m Jennifer, 25 years old. I lost my mom, Alice, when I was sixteen. Her absence still aches like a fresh memory. She was warmth personified—graceful, kind, and always smelling of lavender and cinnamon rolls. More than a mother, she was my best friend.
She didn’t leave behind much, but she did leave me her crystal glasses. To most, they were just fragile glass. To me, they were sacred—symbols of Sunday afternoons spent polishing them together, listening to stories of how she’d found them in a little shop in Grove Wood.
“These are for moments that matter,” she’d say. “Use them when your heart is full.”
That moment came when Michael proposed. I knew I’d use those glasses at our wedding. But Sandra—my stepmother—had other plans.
She married my dad five years after Mom passed, and from day one, she reacted sharply to any mention of Alice. After my engagement, her attitude grew more tense.
First came the harsh remarks:
“Will you walk down the aisle alone, or bring something of your mother with you?”
Then the pressure:
“You’ll wear my wedding dress. It’s tradition.”
