At sixty-four, I thought I understood my son. I thought I knew the values I’d instilled in him during the thirty-five years since I’d brought him into this world. But that October morning, when his SUV pulled into my driveway with an urgency that made my stomach clench, I realized how wrong I’d been.
I was tending my late-blooming roses when I heard the car doors slam.
The sound carried a tension I could feel even before I rounded the corner of my modest two-story home. When I saw them—Terrence and his wife Lennox—standing on my porch surrounded by suitcases, my heart sank.
“Mom, we need to talk,” Terrence called out, his voice strained in a way I’d never heard before. He looked exhausted, his usually neat appearance disheveled.
Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his tie hung crooked against his wrinkled shirt.
Lennox, however, stood perfectly composed in designer clothes, her blonde hair styled to perfection despite the early hour. Her sharp eyes swept across my living room as they entered, calculating something I couldn’t yet understand. I poured coffee with steady hands despite the growing unease in my chest and waited for them to explain why they’d arrived at my door with luggage at eight in the morning.
“We sold the house,” Terrence said finally, the words dropping like stones into still water.
My coffee cup clinked against the saucer as I set it down carefully. “Which house?” I asked, though something in my gut already knew.
“Our house. The one on Maple Street.”
The beautiful colonial I’d helped them purchase.
The house where I’d contributed forty thousand dollars from my retirement savings for the down payment.
The house where I’d spent countless weekends helping them renovate, painting walls until my back ached, planting gardens Lennox never appreciated. “You sold it?” My voice came out smaller than I intended. “Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking about selling?”
Lennox spoke for the first time, her tone cool and matter-of-fact.
“We didn’t need permission, Bessie.
It’s our house.”
The words stung more than they should have. Technically, she was right.
But I’d thought—I’d hoped—that the forty thousand dollars I’d contributed meant something. That it meant I deserved at least a conversation.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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