“Do you know what my future was in your plans? Three meals a day in a communal dining room. A single bed in a room I would share with a stranger. Scheduled activities as if I were a 5-year-old child. Visits once a month if you had time.”
“The home we chose was very good,” Amber protested.
“Did you visit it?”
“Well, we saw the pictures online.”
“The pictures online? You were going to lock up your husband’s mother in a place you didn’t even know in person.”
David approached then with that lost child face that broke my heart despite everything.
“Mom, forgive me. I know we messed up, but we can fix this. We can start over.”
For a moment, just a moment, I was tempted to forgive, to hug him like when he was little and had nightmares. To tell him everything was going to be okay.
But then I remembered the conversation I had overheard three nights ago when they thought I was asleep. David telling Amber, “It won’t be long now. When she’s in the home, we can do whatever we want with the farm. Start over as if nothing happened.”
“Yes, exactly. We can forget all this. David, look me in the eyes.”
He did. In those eyes, I saw the boy he had been, but also the man he had become. A man capable of betraying his own mother for money.
“I can’t forget. And even if I could, I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because what you did taught me something important. That family is not just blood. Family is respect. It is affection. It is protection. You took all three things from me.”
Amber started walking towards the car, dragging her feet on the ground.
“David, let’s go. She’s not going to change her mind.”
“I’m not leaving. She’s my mom.”
“Your mom has already made her decision, and we can’t stay here like beggars.”
David looked at me one last time. In his eyes was something I had never seen before. The understanding that he had lost something forever. Not just the inheritance, not just the money, he had lost his mother.
“Is there really no way to fix this?”
