“You told me she wouldn’t do that.”
I turned toward my son.
He stared at her.
“Don’t.”
But she was already speaking.
“You said we could keep her happy afterward. You said she always came around.”
I looked at the little scar beside his eyebrow, the one he had gotten falling off his bicycle at nine. I had held a washcloth against it while he cried into my shoulder.
“Afterward?” I asked.
He swallowed.
“After things settled down.”
“After you told me not to contact you?”
He nodded once.
His wife snapped the folder shut.
“We both knew she’d be upset about the birthday. You were the one who said a text would be enough.”
I gripped the edge of the table.
“You remembered?”
Neither answered.
“You knew I was waiting?”
My son bent forward, elbows on his knees.
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
I remembered checking the driveway. Putting foil over the vegetables. Turning the oven down so the meat would not dry out.
“Why didn’t you call?”
“We didn’t want to come,” he said.
His wife turned toward him.
“Don’t make it sound like—”
“I could have called,” he said. “I knew she’d cooked. I didn’t want to hear how disappointed she was, so I waited.”
He lifted his face.
“I chose the text because I wouldn’t have to listen.”
I stood up.
My daughter-in-law started to rise, but I held up my hand.
For once, nobody tried to fill the room.
I went to the sink and turned on the cold water. I put my wrists beneath it until I could breathe without making a sound.
When I came back, their folder was still on the table.
“I’m going to say this once,” I told them.
My son straightened.
“You will not receive another mortgage payment from me. My estate arrangements are private. The children can have a relationship with me, but they will not carry requests between our houses.”
My daughter-in-law’s eyes narrowed.
“And if we don’t agree?”
“Then you don’t agree.”
