My son texted:
“Don’t call me anymore. I’m tired of you and your requests.”
I said nothing.
Two months later he called.
“Mom, my wife and I urgently need money for rent.”
My voice came out steady, almost unfamiliar.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are. I don’t have a son.”
I hung up.
If you’re still here with me, listen to my story all the way through—and tell me what city you’re listening from, so I can see how far it’s traveled.
I used to believe motherhood was forever. That no matter what storms came, the bond between mother and child would outlast them.
For sixty-three years I lived by that idea.
I raised my son, Daniel, in our modest home in Ohio, working double shifts as a nurse to give him everything he needed after his father walked out when Daniel was seven. I did the job of two parents on one weary paycheck, and I told myself it was enough—because love, surely, would make up the difference.
Daniel grew up. He went to college. He married a woman named Amber. He started his own life.
I was proud.
Wasn’t that what every mother wanted?
But somewhere along the way, the phone calls turned into requests. The visits turned into transactions.
Mom, can you help us with the down payment?
Mom, we need money for Amber’s medical bills.
Mom, just this once—for the car repair.
And I said yes.
Every single time.
What else would a mother do?
Over the years the pattern sharpened into something I refused to name. Daniel would vanish for weeks—sometimes months. No calls. No texts. No visits.
Then, suddenly, he’d reappear with that familiar tone in his voice: the one that meant he needed something.
And I would open my wallet.
I would open my heart.
Still hoping that this time he’d stay longer. That this time we’d talk about something other than money.
Last spring I called him on his birthday. Amber answered.
“He’s busy,” she said, curt as a slammed door.
I could hear Daniel laughing in the background at something on TV.
“Tell him I love him,” I said softly.
She hung up without replying.
Two weeks later I called again. I’d been feeling unwell, and my doctor had scheduled tests. I didn’t want cash or favors. I just wanted to hear my son’s voice.
This time Daniel answered, and irritation crackled in the line before he even spoke.
“Mom, what is it now?”
“I just wanted to talk, sweetheart. I haven’t heard from you in—”
“I’m in the middle of something.”
“It’ll just take a minute. I wanted to tell you that I—”
“Mom, seriously. I don’t have time for this.”
My chest tightened.
“Daniel, I’m your mother. I just need—”
And then he said it.
The words that would replay in my mind for the next two months like a cracked record.
“Don’t call me anymore. I’m tired of you and your requests.”
My requests.
What had I ever asked of him?
The line went dead.
I sat alone in my kitchen with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to dial tone and silence. Afternoon sun spilled through the window, lighting the photographs on my refrigerator: Daniel as a baby, Daniel at graduation, Daniel at his wedding.
In every photo I was smiling—proud, loving.
Had I been blind all this time?
I didn’t call again.
Not the next day.
Not the next week.
I went to my doctor’s appointments alone. I had my tests done alone.
When the results came back negative—just stress, the doctor said—I celebrated alone with a cup of tea in my empty kitchen.
Eight weeks passed.
Eight weeks of silence.
Eight weeks of learning what it meant to be truly alone.
And in that quiet, something strange happened.
Life kept going.
I joined a book club at the library. I volunteered at the local animal shelter. I discovered that the world didn’t end just because I wasn’t waiting for my phone to ring.
Then, on a Tuesday evening in July, my phone buzzed.
Daniel.
My hand hovered over the screen. Something inside me had shifted in those eight weeks—something that hardened into a clear, cold truth.
I answered.
“Mom.”
His voice was urgent, almost panicked.
“Mom, Amber and I really need your help. We’re behind on rent and we need two thousand dollars by Friday or we’re getting evicted. Can you transfer it today?”
No apology.
No How are you?
No mention of what he’d said two months ago.
Just another demand.
The words came out of me before I had time to soften them.
Calm.
Final.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are. I don’t have a son.”
I hung up.
My hands weren’t shaking.
My heart wasn’t racing.
Instead, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years.
Clarity.
The phone rang again within minutes. Then again. Then again.
Fifteen calls in the first hour.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page to discover the rest 🔎👇
