Margaret put her hand over mine. “I can lend you—”
“I’m not taking your money,” I snapped, pride rising like a last shield.
“You’re not taking it,” Margaret said. “I’m giving it.”
Robert held up a hand. “There’s another option. Negotiation. Maybe they offer you money for the property, a settlement. It won’t be fair, but it will give you something to start over.”
“Start over?” I repeated, bitter. “I’m seventy years old. Where do I start over?”
No one answered, because there was no good answer.
We left Robert’s office with a formal letter he said he would send to Lucas and Jessica. It sounded intimidating on paper—official language demanding explanation and proposing mediation—but I already felt it wouldn’t work. If Lucas truly wanted to take my home, a letter wouldn’t stop him.
Margaret drove me back to her apartment. On the way, we passed my building.
I couldn’t stop myself from looking up toward the third floor. My windows. The cream-colored curtains I had sewn myself.
Jessica had probably already taken them down.
She was probably already redecorating with her cold, modern, minimalist taste, erasing any trace I had ever lived there.
“Do you want us to try knocking?” Margaret asked.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to see her. Not yet.”
That afternoon, sitting on Margaret’s balcony, I called Lucas again.
This time, he answered.
His voice sounded tense, almost a whisper. “Mom, I can’t talk right now.”
“Lucas,” I said, and my throat tightened. “Just tell me why. Give me one reason that makes sense.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Then explain it,” I pleaded. “I’m your mother. You shut me out of my home. Don’t I deserve an explanation?”
I heard noise in the background. Jessica’s voice saying something I couldn’t make out.
Then Lucas, even quieter. “It was for the best, Mom. For everyone.”
“Don’t call anymore,” he said.
He hung up.
I stared at the phone as tears ran down my cheeks uncontrollably. Margaret came out and sat beside me without speaking. Sometimes a friend’s silence is worth more than a thousand comforting words.
The sun began to set. The sky turned orange and violet. It was beautiful—the kind of sunset I used to photograph from my balcony and send to Lucas with messages like, “Look at what beauty we got today.”
And he would respond with a heart. Always a heart.
When did my son stop loving me?
Four days passed. Four days in Margaret’s guest room, wearing her clothes because mine were locked behind a door I could no longer open. Four days of calling Lucas and getting nothing. Robert’s letter was delivered, and we got no reply.
It was like shouting into a bottomless pit.
On the fifth night, Margaret made chamomile tea and sat across from me at her small kitchen table.
“You need to tell me everything,” she said. “From the beginning. Something doesn’t add up. Lucas wasn’t like this.”
Leave a Comment