You Can’t Unburn Ashes

I hadn't spoken to my parents in ten years. Not since the day they screamed at me to get lost and never come back. So when my business partner told me the Britt Group — my father's company — had requested me personally as their wedding photographer, I almost laughed. Then I saw the groom's name. Geoffrey Beasley. The boy who used to climb over my backyard fence with candy in his pocket. The one who promised, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here. We'll see the world." He's marrying my sister. At the reception, my mother marched into my dressing room with tears in her eyes. "Eileen! We raised you for eighteen years! How can you be so heartless?" I looked up at her, calm as ice. "Mrs. Britt, please release me. I have work to do." Her face went ghost-white. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I felt at twelve years old — when they packed my bags and sent me to live alone in an old house while my "sister" took my bedroom, my piano, my parents' love. But what they don't know yet... What none of them know... is that I'm not adopted at all. I'm their biological daughter. And today, I'm bringing the DNA proof to destroy a wedding.

I hadn't spoken to my parents in ten years. Not since the day they screamed at me to get lost and never come back. So when my business partner told me the Britt Group — my father's company — had requested me personally as their wedding photographer, I almost laughed. Then I saw the groom's name. Geoffrey Beasley. The boy who used to climb over my backyard fence with candy in his pocket. The one who promised, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here. We'll see the world." He's marrying my sister. At the reception, my mother marched into my dressing room with tears in her eyes. "Eileen! We raised you for eighteen years! How can you be so heartless?" I looked up at her, calm as ice. "Mrs. Britt, please release me. I have work to do." Her face went ghost-white. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I felt at twelve years old — when they packed my bags and sent me to live alone in an old house while my "sister" took my bedroom, my piano, my parents' love. But what they don't know yet... What none of them know... is that I'm not adopted at all. I'm their biological daughter. And today, I'm bringing the DNA proof to destroy a wedding.

I hadn't spoken to my parents in ten years. Not since the day they screamed at me to get lost and never come back. So when my business partner told me the Britt Group — my father's company — had requested me personally as their wedding photographer, I almost laughed. Then I saw the groom's name. Geoffrey Beasley. The boy who used to climb over my backyard fence with candy in his pocket. The one who promised, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here. We'll see the world." He's marrying my sister. At the reception, my mother marched into my dressing room with tears in her eyes. "Eileen! We raised you for eighteen years! How can you be so heartless?" I looked up at her, calm as ice. "Mrs. Britt, please release me. I have work to do." Her face went ghost-white. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I felt at twelve years old — when they packed my bags and sent me to live alone in an old house while my "sister" took my bedroom, my piano, my parents' love. But what they don't know yet... What none of them know... is that I'm not adopted at all. I'm their biological daughter. And today, I'm bringing the DNA proof to destroy a wedding.

I hadn't spoken to my parents in ten years. Not since the day they screamed at me to get lost and never come back. So when my business partner told me the Britt Group — my father's company — had requested me personally as their wedding photographer, I almost laughed. Then I saw the groom's name. Geoffrey Beasley. The boy who used to climb over my backyard fence with candy in his pocket. The one who promised, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here. We'll see the world." He's marrying my sister. At the reception, my mother marched into my dressing room with tears in her eyes. "Eileen! We raised you for eighteen years! How can you be so heartless?" I looked up at her, calm as ice. "Mrs. Britt, please release me. I have work to do." Her face went ghost-white. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I felt at twelve years old — when they packed my bags and sent me to live alone in an old house while my "sister" took my bedroom, my piano, my parents' love. But what they don't know yet... What none of them know... is that I'm not adopted at all. I'm their biological daughter. And today, I'm bringing the DNA proof to destroy a wedding.

I hadn't spoken to my parents in ten years. Not since the day they screamed at me to get lost and never come back. So when my business partner told me the Britt Group — my father's company — had requested me personally as their wedding photographer, I almost laughed. Then I saw the groom's name. Geoffrey Beasley. The boy who used to climb over my backyard fence with candy in his pocket. The one who promised, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here. We'll see the world." He's marrying my sister. At the reception, my mother marched into my dressing room with tears in her eyes. "Eileen! We raised you for eighteen years! How can you be so heartless?" I looked up at her, calm as ice. "Mrs. Britt, please release me. I have work to do." Her face went ghost-white. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I felt at twelve years old — when they packed my bags and sent me to live alone in an old house while my "sister" took my bedroom, my piano, my parents' love. But what they don't know yet... What none of them know... is that I'm not adopted at all. I'm their biological daughter. And today, I'm bringing the DNA proof to destroy a wedding.

I hadn't spoken to my parents in ten years. Not since the day they screamed at me to get lost and never come back. So when my business partner told me the Britt Group — my father's company — had requested me personally as their wedding photographer, I almost laughed. Then I saw the groom's name. Geoffrey Beasley. The boy who used to climb over my backyard fence with candy in his pocket. The one who promised, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here. We'll see the world." He's marrying my sister. At the reception, my mother marched into my dressing room with tears in her eyes. "Eileen! We raised you for eighteen years! How can you be so heartless?" I looked up at her, calm as ice. "Mrs. Britt, please release me. I have work to do." Her face went ghost-white. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I felt at twelve years old — when they packed my bags and sent me to live alone in an old house while my "sister" took my bedroom, my piano, my parents' love. But what they don't know yet... What none of them know... is that I'm not adopted at all. I'm their biological daughter. And today, I'm bringing the DNA proof to destroy a wedding.

I hadn't spoken to my parents in ten years. Not since the day they screamed at me to get lost and never come back. So when my business partner told me the Britt Group — my father's company — had requested me personally as their wedding photographer, I almost laughed. Then I saw the groom's name. Geoffrey Beasley. The boy who used to climb over my backyard fence with candy in his pocket. The one who promised, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here. We'll see the world." He's marrying my sister. At the reception, my mother marched into my dressing room with tears in her eyes. "Eileen! We raised you for eighteen years! How can you be so heartless?" I looked up at her, calm as ice. "Mrs. Britt, please release me. I have work to do." Her face went ghost-white. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I felt at twelve years old — when they packed my bags and sent me to live alone in an old house while my "sister" took my bedroom, my piano, my parents' love. But what they don't know yet... What none of them know... is that I'm not adopted at all. I'm their biological daughter. And today, I'm bringing the DNA proof to destroy a wedding.

I hadn't spoken to my parents in ten years. Not since the day they screamed at me to get lost and never come back. So when my business partner told me the Britt Group — my father's company — had requested me personally as their wedding photographer, I almost laughed. Then I saw the groom's name. Geoffrey Beasley. The boy who used to climb over my backyard fence with candy in his pocket. The one who promised, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here. We'll see the world." He's marrying my sister. At the reception, my mother marched into my dressing room with tears in her eyes. "Eileen! We raised you for eighteen years! How can you be so heartless?" I looked up at her, calm as ice. "Mrs. Britt, please release me. I have work to do." Her face went ghost-white. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I felt at twelve years old — when they packed my bags and sent me to live alone in an old house while my "sister" took my bedroom, my piano, my parents' love. But what they don't know yet... What none of them know... is that I'm not adopted at all. I'm their biological daughter. And today, I'm bringing the DNA proof to destroy a wedding.