Fifteen Years After My Divorce, I Found My Ex-Mother-in-Law Digging Through a Dumpster

“I let him in because of the child. I couldn’t leave him out there, stuck with a father who had no idea how to parent.

But it didn’t last long.”

“A week later, I woke up, and Caleb was gone.” Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “The child was still sleeping in the other room.”

I stared at her.

She nodded once.

“I waited for him to come back. I called. I filed a report, but I never heard from him again.”

She told me the rest in fragments.

She’d worked two jobs to take care of Caleb’s son, but it wasn’t enough.

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