“Three thousand dollars,” he said. “For a bracelet. Where did you get three thousand dollars, Moren?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“It’s not what it looks like,” she said. “David is just a friend. He’s helping us with real estate stuff. I wanted to look nice when we met, and he offered to—”
“To put his hand on your back while you walked into a hotel?” Eddie snapped.
Her mask slipped.
“You don’t get it,” she said, voice hardening. “Your mother is selfish. She’s sitting on all this equity while we’re stuck in that tiny apartment. We deserved that house, Eddie. After everything we’ve been through, we deserved a chance to have something of our own. She was never going to give it up unless she was pushed.”
“So you were going to get me to push her,” he said. “You were going to convince me to talk her into selling, use the money to buy a house, and then leave me—”
He choked on the words.
“After the divorce is finalized,” he finished hoarsely.
Moren’s eyes flashed.
“You’re being dramatic,” she said.
Eddie stood up so fast the coffee table rattled.
“Get out,” he said.
Moren blinked.
“What?”
“Get out of my mother’s house,” he said, his voice low and shaking with rage. “Now.”
“Eddie, be reasonable—”
“Reasonable?” he shouted. “You lied to me. You cheated on me. You planned to steal from my mother and then leave me. Get. Out.”
She stared at him, her jaw clenched.
“You’ll regret this,” she snapped. “You’re throwing away your future because of her.”
She snatched up her purse and the designer handbag I’d given her and stormed toward the door.
The door slammed so hard the ornaments on the tree trembled.
Then there was silence.
Eddie stood in the middle of the living room, chest rising and falling quickly, eyes fixed on the front door as if he expected her to burst back in.
The papers in his hands fluttered.
Then his knees buckled.
He sank onto the couch, bent forward, and covered his face with his hands.
The sound that came out of him was the kind I’d only heard once before—in the front row of a church in Ohio, when we buried Ray.
I moved slowly to the couch and sat beside him.
I didn’t say anything at first.
I just placed my hand gently on his shoulder.
He flinched at the touch, then leaned into me, his body shaking with sobs.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” he choked out. “I’m so sorry.”
“Shh,” I said softly. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” he said, pulling back to look at me.
His face was blotchy, eyes red.
“I let her… I let her talk to you like that. I let her sit in your house and treat you like you were nothing. I believed her when she said you were being selfish. I believed her when she said holding on to this place meant you were holding us back.”
He shook his head.
“And tonight…” His voice broke. “What I said about you needing to learn a lesson, about not getting you anything… God, Mom. I can’t believe I said that to you. After everything you’ve done for me.”
I squeezed his hand.
