“Sweetheart, Use Mom’s Account! She’s Got About Savings Put Away!” My Son Said, Handing My Payment Method To His Wife As If It Were Nothing.

She’s got like $130,000 saved up.”

I heard my son Edward’s voice from the living room, and it felt like the floor was opening up under my feet. I was in the kitchen preparing lunch, my hands covered in flour when those words cut through the wall and hit me in the chest like a closed fist. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.

My own son—the child I carried for nine months, the one I nursed and raised alone after his father left us—was handing my bank card over to Grace, his wife, as if it were his. As if that $130,000, which cost me 40 years of work—ruined knees from scrubbing other people’s floors, tired eyes from sewing until dawn—belonged to him. I dropped the rolling pin on the counter and stood there paralyzed, my heart beating so hard I could hear it in my ears.

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