I spent $19,000 on my son’s wedding—my entire life savings—believing I was giving him one last gift of love. Instead, I watched him erase me in front of two hundred people. My name is Stephanie.
I am seventy years old, and for almost half a century, I have been Ethan’s mother in every way that matters. I adopted him when he was five—a trembling, hollow-eyed boy who woke up screaming for parents who would never walk through the door again. I worked two jobs to give him a warm bed, a steady childhood, a future far bigger than anything I ever had.
I never remarried. I never had more children. Every part of my life—every paycheck, every dream I folded away—was for him.
And yet, that night, he acted as if I were a stranger. Ethan met Ashley three years ago, and from the beginning, she looked at me as though I were something she’d found stuck to her shoe. Her mother, Carol, was the kind of woman who attended charity galas, collected beach houses, and took effortless pride in reminding everyone of it.
Compared to her, I was just an aging widow in a modest apartment with hands that still carried the scars of factory work. Ashley didn’t say it out loud, but I heard it in every condescending smile: You don’t belong in our world. Soon Ethan began behaving like he agreed with her.
Phone calls dwindled. Holidays became rushed visits. He stopped hugging me goodbye.
It was as if the more polished his life became, the more he felt ashamed of the woman who raised him. Then one afternoon, he came over and sat in my living room with the stiffness of someone delivering bad news. “We need money for the wedding,” he said flatly.
“Ashley’s parents covered their share. Now we need you to contribute.”
“How much?” I asked, bracing myself. “$19,000.”
He said it the way someone orders coffee—effortless, entitled.
“That’s my whole savings,” I whispered. He didn’t even blink. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t hesitate.”
Something inside me cracked quietly, like a plate slipping off a table and shattering on the floor.
But I gave it to him anyway. Because mothers don’t stop loving, even when it hurts. I went to the bank, drained everything I had, and placed the check in his hand.
He didn’t hug me. He didn’t cry. He didn’t even smile.
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