“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.

I wasn’t going to beg. I was going to do something much more powerful. I was going to observe.

I was going to wait. I was going to let Lawrence believe he had won. And then, when he least expected it, when he was most confident, most sure of his control over me, I was going to show him who Patricia Menddees really was.

Not the submissive mother he thought he knew, but the woman who had survived a broken marriage, poverty, and years of hard work. The woman who knew exactly how to protect herself, the woman he should never have underestimated. There was a time when I believed that being a mother was enough.

That the love I gave would be returned naturally, as if it were a universal law. That the sacrifices I made every day would build something solid, something unbreakable between my son and me. How wrong I was.

Lawrence was born on a stormy night 34 years ago. His father, the man who had promised me a life together, left when the boy was barely 2 years old. He said he wasn’t ready to be a dad, that he needed to find himself, that I would understand someday.

I never understood. But I also didn’t wait for him to come back. I was left alone with a small child, a two-bedroom apartment that I could barely afford, and a secretary job that paid $800 a month.

It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. So, I got a second job cleaning offices at night.

I would leave Lawrence with my neighbor, an elderly woman who charged me $50 a week to watch him. I worked from 7:00 in the morning until 6:00 in the evening at the office. I would come home, feed Lawrence, bathe him, and put him to bed.

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