AFTER YEARS ABROAD, I CAME HOME AND FOUND MY MOM LIVING AS A MAID IN THE $1.5M HOUSE I …
I knew something was wrong the moment she opened the door. Her shoulders were slumped, her hands trembling, her eyes avoiding mine like she’d been trained not to look strangers in the face. My mother, my mother, greeting me like a hired maid.
And behind her, sprawled across the leather couch I’d paid for, was my brother, shirtless, smirking at a TV bigger than his ego, living in the $1.5 million house I bought. Food on the table, beer in hand, no clue I was even there. He didn’t even glance up.
That was the moment the fuse lit. I didn’t speak. Not at first.
Silence is the sharpest blade. Instead, I stepped inside, watching her flinch as though she expected an order. She didn’t recognize me.
That part cut deeper than anything my brother had ever done. Ten years abroad. Ten years building an investment firm from a rented room until I could afford this house back home.
The one I left in her care. The one I told my brother to simply watch over. And yet here she was, wiping her hands on an apron that wasn’t hers, apologizing for the mess, her voice so small it barely existed.
My mother had never apologized to me for anything in my life. That’s when I knew he’d broken her. It wasn’t always like this.
There was a time when my brother and I were inseparable, two boys with scraped knees and matching secrets. He was reckless. I was responsible.
I thought we balanced each other. I defended him, backed him, believed in him because family was supposed to be the one thing worth protecting. When I left for Dubai, he hugged me like he meant it, told me he’d take care of Mom no matter what.
I believed him. God, that was my first mistake. The betrayal unfolded slowly, like rot behind a wall.
At first, it was small things, unreturned calls, my mother sounding tired, bills paid later than they should have been. Then her voice changed, quieter, careful. My brother answered her phone once, said she was busy. He sounded irritated I’d even called. I started noticing withdrawals from the home maintenance account, huge ones, always labeled “supplies.” Supplies my mother would never use. I confronted him by text.
He replied with a single word. Relax. That was the moment I stopped trying to reason.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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