<\/p>\n
When Diane was eight, her mom, Erika, left her with her aunt and uncle, promising a quick \u201cbusiness trip\u201d and a visit to Disneyland after. But the calls grew fewer, the promises faded, and eventually, Erika admitted she\u2019d met a man in Italy and was staying there.<\/p>\n
Years passed. Diane stopped waiting. Her aunt and uncle became her true parents.<\/p>\n
Then, as Diane neared graduation, Erika called\u2014\u201cCome to Milan! Meet your stepfather! We\u2019ll look at colleges!\u201d Reluctantly, Diane went.<\/p>\n
But the reunion wasn\u2019t what she imagined. The first thing her mother said was, \u201cWhat are you wearing?\u201d Then came, \u201cYou\u2019ve gained weight\u2014we\u2019ll fix that.\u201d<\/p>\n
At dinner, her stepfather barely noticed her. And then Erika smiled sweetly and said, \u201cYou\u2019ll stay here from now on. My husband always wanted kids, and since I can\u2019t have any, you\u2019ll do.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was it. Diane asked for cab money to \u201csee the city,\u201d then went straight to the airport.<\/p>\n
When she got home, she hugged her aunt and uncle and said, \u201cYou\u2019re my real parents. She just wanted to show me off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her uncle smiled. \u201cYou always have a home with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Diane never looked back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Diane was eight, her mom, Erika, left her with her aunt and uncle, promising a quick \u201cbusiness trip\u201d and a visit to Disneyland after. But the calls grew fewer, the promises faded, and eventually, Erika admitted she\u2019d met a man in Italy and was staying there. Years passed. Diane stopped waiting. Her aunt …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8301,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8299\/revisions\/8301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}