The garbage bag hit my chest before I could react.
My son’s car was already pulling away, tires screaming against the pavement, leaving me standing alone in the middle of Riverside Park with trash in my hands. The smell of wet leaves and freshly cut grass mixed with exhaust fumes as I watched his tail lights disappear around the corner.
My fingers trembled, still gripping the torn plastic handles. Around me, joggers slowed their pace, and a woman pushing a stroller drifted to the other side of the path like I was something contagious.
I was seventy-two years old, wearing my Sunday dress, clutching garbage like some kind of vagrant who’d lost her way.
The bag was heavier than it should have been, and something solid shifted inside as I stumbled toward the nearest bench.
My hip ached from the impact, but that pain was nothing compared to the sound of Garrett’s voice still ringing in my ears.
“Take your trash.”
Those words had been spat out like poison.
His face through the car window had been twisted with something I couldn’t name—not anger exactly, something deeper, more broken.
And then he was gone, leaving me with whatever worthless items Heather had finally decided I could keep.
I sat down hard on the wooden bench, the bag settling between my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs. Three months.
Three months since they dropped me at Maple Gardens like an unwanted package, promising visits that never came.
Three months of eating alone in that sterile cafeteria, staring at white walls, wondering how my own son could just forget I existed. And now this—this final humiliation delivered in a public park where strangers could witness my shame.
But the weight was wrong.
Trash shouldn’t feel like this, shouldn’t make the plastic strain and bulge in odd places.
My hands moved almost without thinking, fingers working at the yellow drawstring.
The knot was tight, secured like someone had wanted to make sure nothing fell out—or maybe like someone had wanted to make sure I wouldn’t look inside until I was alone.
Hi viewers, kindly tell us where you’re watching from and what time it is.
The drawstring finally gave way. I pulled the opening wide, and my breath caught in my throat.
No garbage. No worthless belongings Heather had deemed unfit for her perfect life.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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