A week later, her face was everywhere—newspapers, television, social media. “Young single mother wins $10 million in state lottery.” There she was, draped in designer clothes she once couldn’t dream of affording, clinking champagne glasses with her boyfriend, grinning like the world was hers.
I watched it all from my sister’s guest room on an old television set. Rage boiled inside me, but I remained silent. I waited.
In my nightstand drawer lay a yellow envelope. Inside it—the real winning ticket. I had bought it myself with my savings at the gas station that afternoon. I had left it on the kitchen table, never thinking she would snatch it without a glance. She never turned it over, never read the back. Because on the back, in black ink, was my signature: María Delgado.
She became unaccessible within days. Her old number disordered. Her children left with their father, forgotten while she basked in her new life. Each news segment showed her more unrecognizable: not the daughter I once rocked to sleep, not the young woman who once cried in my arms after heartbreak. No, she had become a stranger—hungry, proud, untouchable.
I kept silent.
Then came the call. The state law office. Their voices formal, careful:
“Ms. Delgado, we’ve confirmed the winning ticket is in your name. We need you to come in for final verification.”
My breath caught. My hands shook. This was no dream. It was real. She never checked.
The morning of the meeting was rainy—fitting, like the night she threw me out. I wore my old brown coat, the one she mocked for being outdated. And I walked into that office with the dignity she had tried to strip away.
The cameras were waiting. The oversized check already printed, my name gleaming in gold: $10,000,000. For the first time in years, I felt seen—not as a burden, but as someone who still mattered.
She arrived minutes later, shrieking, insisting there had been a mistake, that the money was hers. But the lawyers were firm. The ticket was signed. Legally, it was mine. The cameras recorded her collapse—her perfect makeup streaking, her fury erupting—as she understood that she had lost it all.
