I stood there my heart was beating my son was uneasy beside his wife.
“We lied about what?” I asked, my voice assured, yet definite.
My daughter-in-law crossed her arms. We never actually have needed that space for a family. Because we just assumed it’d be easier for you guys to just move out and we could have the house to ourselves. I felt the air leave my lungs. “My mother needs a place to stay now, and this arrangement works best for us.” My own son—my own son, I believed I was giving them the house to ensure a prosperous future and start a family and create a home. All they wanted was for me to be gone.
I turned to him. “Is this true?”
His face reddened. He looked away. “Mom, there was no intention on our part to hurt you.” Downsize. We just… we thought it was time for you.”
It wasn’t their home, the one my home, they weren’t allowed to say what to do with it—I had built that home with his father. I left it there, because I thought it was doing something good. And now, I was hearing that I had been played, that my good heart would be taken advantage of.
I gripped my hands at my side. As I repeated ’I didn’t leave my home so you could bring someone else in,’ this time slower, measuredMy daughter–in–law shrugged. “Well, it’s our house now.”
That stung far more than I’d expected. She wasn’t wrong, not legally. I had signed it over. But what wounded was the tone of her voice, cold and dismissive—the way she said it as if I did not have any stake in the place of my son’s upbringing, where I had wept, and laughed, where I had shared birthday and anniversary celebrations; where I had mourned the loss of my husband.
Swallowing hard, I went back to my son. “Okay, if you feel that way, then nothing else needs to be said.”
Before they could respond, I left.
—
I sat in silence back at my sister’s house, staring at the cup of tea she had placed before me.
Finally I said, ‘They lied to me, Mary.’” ‘They didn’t want the house to be one in which to start a family.’ They just wanted me out.”
Mary sighed. “I was afraid of that. They got what they didn’t earn and now they’re demonstrating to you who they really are.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t understand. I raised him better, than this I thought.”
She leaned across the table and squeezed my hand. “You did. Sometimes, however, when people are given too much, too easily, they show their true colors. He abused your kindness.”
I closed my eyes, a dull ache landing in the chest. “What do I do now?”
“You start thinking about yourself for once,” Mary paused, then said. They may have the house but they don’t have your peace.”
—
Time went by and I attempted to move on, but the wound did not heal. One evening, my phone rang then. It was my son.
“Mom, we need to talk.”
I almost didn’t answer. But I did.
My daughter-in-law was not around when I arrived at their house—the same house, the house that used to be mine. He sat down and looked more nervous than I’d ever seen him.
“Mom… I messed up,” he conceded as his fingers ruffled his hair. “You left that day and I started thinking about what we had done.” I knew then that we had been wrong. I think we shouldn’t have lied to you. ‘You shouldn’t have treated us like that.’”
I folded my arms. “What changed?”
His jaw tightened. “My mother-in-law moved in.”
“And?”
He mumbled, “and it’s been a nightmare.” “She criticizes everything we do. She’s demanding. Like she’s the man of the house. And the worst part? ‘My wife, she always takes her side over mine every time.’”
I was almost laughing at the irony.
“I said, ‘So, you pushed your own mother out of the way just to make space for someone else’s.’”
His face fell. “I guess I did.”
Silence stretched between us.
Finally he said: “I don’t expect you to forgive me.” ‘I just had to tell you that I know I was wrong.’ “I wish I could take it back.”
I sighed, the anger gradually leaving me being replaced by the regret in his eyes. “I thanked him for that,” I said. “But you made your choices. ‘And now you have to live with them.’”
He looked up at me when I stood to leave. “Mom, would you ever consider moving back?”
I looked at him, the uncertainty and regret of the boy who was once my little son but had become a man filled with so many mistakes, big ones.
I exhaled. “No, sweetheart. This was my home once. But not anymore.”
So I walked away, knowing for the first time in a while that I was finally putting myself first.
