Then Melissa grabbed his arm. “We’re done here.”
And Mark followed her. He walked out of the beach house.
He didn’t look back. Linda fell onto the couch, shaking, staring at the American flag waving outside the window — a flag she had kept because Mark used to salute it every morning as a child. The house was silent.
For the first time in her life…
Linda felt truly alone. **
But two months later…
Mark returned. Alone.
With tears in his eyes. “Mom… Melissa left me,” he whispered. “She said I was ‘too attached’ to my family.
She took the baby and moved across the country.”
Linda’s breath caught. He dropped to his knees. “I should’ve listened to you.
I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry.”
Linda held his face in her trembling hands. “Son… I never stopped loving you. But now you understand something:
Anyone who asks you to abandon your own mother…
never loved you to begin with.”
They cried together — the ocean roaring behind them.
And for the first time in months, Linda felt hope again. Her son was home.
