When the wealthy couple saw their newborn’s face, the mother gasped, “Take him away, he’s a monster.” They abandoned him at the hospital. A kind nurse raised him. Twenty years later, the couple desperately needed a rare surgery. The world-famous surgeon walked in, revealed his birthmark, and…

of the hysteria she was bracing for. “The people who sell perfection. They left me.”

“I was waiting until you were old enough,” Margaret sobbed, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around my rigid shoulders. “I didn’t want their shallowness to poison your heart before you knew your own strength.”

I leaned into her embrace, the smell of her lavender continue reading …