On the morning I found out my son got married, I was icing a cake I’d baked for his engagement dinner, standing barefoot on the cool tile of my little Florida kitchen while a local morning show murmured from the TV. The frosting was still soft when the phone rang, and I answered with that hopeful flutter mothers get when they hear their child’s name on the screen. I didn’t know that by the time I hung up, every bit of sweetness in that cake—and in my heart—would taste like chalk.
“Hi, Patricia.”
Sarah’s voice came through smooth as glass.
She never called me Mom. “Oh, hi, sweetheart,” I said, smiling into the phone even though no one could see me.
“I was just finishing the cake for tonight. What time should I come by?”
There was a pause, long enough for the kitchen clock to tick three times and for the refrigerator to click on with its familiar hum.
Then she said, almost casually, “Oh, about that.
You don’t have to. We actually got married yesterday.”
I remember gripping the counter so hard my fingers turned white, the frosting knife slipping from my hand and landing with a dull clink on the floor. “You what?”
“We just did a small ceremony,” she said, her voice light and cheerful, like she was talking about a trip to Publix.
“Only special people were invited.”
Those last four words hit me like a cold wind off the Gulf.
Only special people. I laughed, a small, nervous sound that didn’t belong to me.
“Well, I hope it was beautiful,” I said, trying to hold the word steady. “I would have loved to be there.”
Sarah hesitated, then added, “It was really intimate.
We wanted to keep it simple.”
And before I could find my breath again, she said, “Anyway, David’s busy, but we’ll call you later.”
Then she hung up.
I stood in the middle of my kitchen, phone still in hand, frosting drying at the edges of the cake like concrete. The house was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the faint chirp of birds outside. I could almost hear my own heartbeat, heavy and uneven, echoing against the walls.
That was the moment I realized how far I had fallen into their world, into the illusion that money could buy closeness, that love could be rented month by month through automatic payments.
For four years since David lost his job and temporarily moved in with Sarah, I’d covered their rent, their car loan, the credit cards, even the furniture delivery that cost more than my first car. Every month I told myself it was temporary, that I was helping them get started.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
Tap READ MORE to discover the rest 🔎👇
