My son left college and moved miles away after meeting “his soulmate” in an online game. She convinced him to move so that they can get married. Now he says I have to visit him and meet her family.
To my shock, he even forced me to bring along the photo albums he used to laugh at as a teenager — the ones filled with birthday hats, messy faces from chocolate cakes, and pictures of him wearing my heels when he was five. I wasn’t angry. I was stunned.
This boy who used to roll his eyes when I told him to clean his room had now packed up his whole life for a girl he met through a headset. College was only a year in, and I had dreams — maybe not Ivy League, but a diploma at least. A steady job.
Maybe he’d move back to town someday. But now? He was in Nebraska, of all places.
The call had come on a rainy Tuesday. I remember it clearly because my old roof had just started leaking again and I was standing on a chair trying to tape a bowl to the ceiling. “Mom,” he said, voice excited.
“You have to come meet her. Her family’s great. They’re having a big Sunday lunch, kind of like a welcome thing.
You’ll love them. And bring the albums. She wants to see my baby pictures.”
I didn’t say no.
I never could with him. But I hung up that phone feeling like the world had taken a sharp left turn and forgotten to warn me. I booked a flight the next morning, packed my nicest blouse, and wrapped the albums in a scarf like they were fine china.
As the plane took off, I stared out the window and wondered if this girl — whatever her name was, I had forgotten in the moment — really knew who my son was. He could barely boil an egg, still thought putting his shirts in a drawer counted as laundry, and didn’t even own a real winter coat. I landed in a tiny airport with only two terminals.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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