“Mom, Starting Next Month, We’ll Transfer All Your Money To My Account.” My Son Said That, And I Just Smiled. That Night, As Always, He Came With His Wife For A Free Dinner.

She looked at me with those eyes that had always seemed cold and calculating. And she said something I’ll never forget. She said I was being selfish, that I was only thinking about myself, that they came every week to keep me company, to make sure I was okay, and that this was how I repaid them.

Selfish me. The woman who had worked double shifts for years so that Lawrence could go to college. The woman who had given up on starting a new life after his father left us because I didn’t want my son to grow up with a stepfather.

The woman who had lived in small apartments, who had worn old clothes, who had eaten the bare minimum so he could have everything he needed. Selfish. Lawrence just stood there looking at me as if I were a problem he needed to solve.

And then he said something that broke me in two. He said maybe it had been a mistake to suggest the bank account to me, that maybe I wasn’t in a condition to make good decisions, that maybe I needed more help than he thought. More help, as if I were a burden, as if I were an incapable old woman who needed to be controlled.

I got up from my chair, then I looked at them both, and I told them in a voice that came out stronger than I expected, that dinner wasn’t ready, that there was no dinner, that if they were hungry, they could go eat somewhere else. The silence that followed was thick and heavy. Lawrence looked at me as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

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