They saw me coming and immediately moved Claire behind them.
The motion was so natural, so practiced, that I almost admired it.
Claire smiled and stepped forward anyway. “Mrs. Harrington, let the driver take you. It’s on the way.”
“No need,” I said, walking toward the curb.
“Oh, don’t be like that.” She came closer as if she were trying to be kind.
Then she leaned in, lowered her voice, and whispered in my ear, “You know your children already call me Mom when you’re not around, right?”
My hand froze around my bag strap.
She smiled wider.
“You really are pathetic. You couldn’t keep your husband. Your kids can’t stand you. If I were you, I’d be too ashamed to keep living.”
For one second, I saw red.
Back when she had still been a poor graduate student, I had invited her to our home for dinner countless times.
I had slipped cash into her hand when she said she was struggling.
I had treated her like family.
And this was what she had become.
My hand flew up before I even thought about it.
But before it could land, Jason grabbed my wrist so hard I thought the bones might crack.
“You crazy old woman!” he snapped. “I knew you were up to something.”
I looked straight at him. “Do you know what she just said to me?”
He hesitated.
I sat up straighter despite the pain in my back. “She said both of you already call her Mom. She called me pathetic.”
Something changed in Jason’s face for a split second.
A twitch.
A flicker.
But it disappeared as quickly as it came.
He released a cold breath and said, “Was she wrong?”
The words hit harder than the shove.
He looked at me as though he were finally done pretending.
“Aunt Claire is young, beautiful, and has a doctorate,” he said. “What are you? A housewife who only knows how to cook and clean. You were never good enough to be our mother.”
I had already lost hope in them.
I thought I had.
But hearing him say it out loud still felt like being punched in the chest.
At that exact moment, tires screeched.
A truck came swerving down the road, completely out of control.
Everything happened in an instant.
Instinct took over before thought did.
I reached for Jason, trying to shove him out of the way.
But both he and Megan lunged toward Claire instead.
Not toward me.
Not even past me.
Through me.
They shoved me aside like I was an obstacle between them and the woman they actually wanted to protect.
I hit the pavement hard.
Then came the sound.
Brakes. Shouting. Impact.
As my vision dimmed, I heard them scream one word.
“Mom!”
And then, just before consciousness slipped away, memories flooded in like a tide.
After Jason was born, David had started sleeping in the study, saying he needed peace for his research.
At the time he was still just a lecturer, desperate to climb the academic ladder.
He’d come home and shut himself away, emerging only to eat or use the bathroom.
My mother-in-law was sick and couldn’t help.
So I quit my job, even though my career had finally been taking off, and stayed home to raise the children alone.
Jason was wild as a boy.
Once he got into a fight so bad another child nearly lost an eye.
To keep him out of juvenile trouble, I knelt in front of that family and begged until my forehead bruised against the floor.
When they hit me in their anger, I didn’t fight back.
I let them.
I ended up with three broken ribs. One came dangerously close to puncturing an organ.
But Jason got to stay in school.
Megan had been born with kidney problems.
When she was twelve, the doctors said she needed a transplant.
David took one look at the situation and walked away.
“For a girl?” he’d said. “It’s not worth it.”
So I gave Megan one of my kidneys.
There had been a time when both of them clung to me.
A time when I was their whole world.
I didn’t know exactly when that changed.
Maybe when David started becoming successful.
Maybe when they realized he had status and money and I only had calloused hands.
I was hurt by it, but I never blamed them.
Not until the day I overheard them talking to their father.
“Dad, you’ve suffered long enough,” Jason had said. “If I had to live with that washed-up old woman, I would’ve lost my mind years ago.”
Megan had laughed. “You deserve someone better. If you want a divorce, we’ll support you.”
Then Jason added casually, “Though honestly, if she leaves, who’s going to take care of you? A live-in caregiver isn’t cheap.”
That was the moment I understood.
To them, I wasn’t a mother.
I wasn’t even a person.
I was unpaid labor with sentimental packaging.
And now, lying on the cold road with blood pounding in my ears, I finally stopped asking myself what I had done wrong.
The answer was simple.
Nothing.
The wrong was loving the wrong people for too long.