The air leaves my lungs all at once.
“How canyouexpect me to be a good father,” I say, voice low and sharp, “when I come from a deadbeat and a bitch?”
Her mouth falls open in shock. “How dare you,” she gasps. “I raised you alone.”
“Exactly,” I fire back. “Youraisedme. I’m raised. Your days of meddling in my life to ‘show me the way’ are over.”
Her nostrils flare. “I’m not meddling. I’m protecting you.”
“Jesus, Ma,” I say, dragging a hand down my face. “Just admit it. You’re jealous.”
Her mouth snaps shut. She stares at me like I’ve slapped her. “I am not jealous.”
“Yes, you are,” I say, voice quieter now but deadly clear. “You resent that Brooke gets to stay home while you had to go to work the week after you gave birth. You resent that she gets the life youwanted.”
She looks away, and that’s all the confirmation I need.
“I love you, Ma,” I continue, the words heavy in my chest. “But your inability to accept Brooke and my choices has only left me with one option. I’m done.”
Her head jerks toward me, eyes wide. “Matthew…” she breathes, horrified.
“You used something I told youin confidenceto hurt Brooke. You didn’t even consider you were breakingmytrust too.”
“Matthew-” she starts again, but I’m done.
I walk to the door, yank it open, and say evenly, “Please leave.”
She doesn’t move.
“Leave,” I say louder this time.
Something in my tone finally registers. She moves slowly, like she expects me to stop her.
I don’t.
The door thuds shut behind her, louder than I mean it to be. The echo hangs in the hallway, then dies.
For a beat I just stand there, staring at the door. I very well may have just ended my relationship with my mother. What else could I have done?
She finally did something I couldn’t explain away, even to myself. I know how hard she had to work raising me without a man, and now she wants the same for Brooke.
Letting out a sigh, I turn toward the hall that leads to the bedrooms. I could go after Brooke. I want to. But Penny’s asleep, and I won’t turn this into a scene in front of our daughter.
So, I drop onto the couch and wait.
It takes more than an hour. Long enough that I realise, I can’t fix this without the truth, I’ll just tell her everything and let the chips fall.
When Brooke finally comes out, she’s not teary. Of course she isn’t. Her face is cool, controlled, the kind of calm that’s worse than yelling. She just stands in the middle of the room, arms folded, waiting.
I start at the beginning. The park after her baby shower. Zeke. The number. The lunches. The email from the bank. The missing card. The promise to pay me back. The vanishing act. Every stupid, gullible step I took laid out between us like evidence bags on a table.
Her jaw tightens once, then sets. When I finish, she says, flat, “I thought the limit on the card was fifteen.”
“It was.” I swallow. “He used about thirteen in the first month. Fifteen in the second. I found out on the first of this month and by then he’d already maxed it.”
She doesn’t flinch. “Didn’t you get notifications? Emails when it was used?”
I shake my head. “New card, I never turned them on. And the bank says they’ll only reverse the charges if I file a police report, and I couldn’t do that unless…”
