Chapter 4 - The Betrayal of a Son
When the front door slammed behind Quinton that morning, my world collapsed into total chaos.
I had fallen to my knees on the linoleum floor, weeping until my chest felt bruised and hollow.
At eleven o'clock, our only child, Forest, had walked through the kitchen door.
Forest was thirty-nine, a junior partner at his father’s firm, wearing the same arrogant smirk Quinton had perfected over forty years.
I had scrambled to my feet, throwing my arms around his shoulders, desperate for the comfort of the boy I had rocked through scarlet fever and broken arms.
"Forest... thank God you're here," I sobbed into his jacket. "Your father has lost his mind. He told me he's bringing that marketing girl into our home."
Forest didn't wrap his arms around me.
He gently, but firmly, placed his hands against my forearms and pushed me backward until I was leaning against the counter.
"Mom, please," Forest said, sighing as if I were a difficult client demanding too much paperwork. "Stop crying. You're giving yourself a migraine."
I looked into his face—a face that carried my father’s jawline and my mother’s green eyes.
"Forest? Did you hear what I said?"
"I know all about Valentina, Mom," Forest answered calmly, adjusting his silk tie in the reflection of the microwave door. "In fact, I introduced them at the regional shipping gala in Charleston three months ago."
The room seemed to spin in slow, sickening circles.
"You... you introduced them?"
"Dad was miserable, Mom," Forest said, his tone dripping with patronizing condescension. "You spend all your time reading old paperbacks and baking pies. You don't entertain clients. You don't fit into the new image we are building for Bellamy Logistics."
He reached into his coat pocket and tossed a set of budget hotel coupons onto the counter.
"Be reasonable, Mom," Forest urged. "Sign the uncontested separation agreement Dad's lawyers sent over. If you fight this in court, Dad will freeze the twelve hundred dollars and you'll end up with nothing. Take a room at the highway motel, get some rest, and find a nice little retirement apartment out near the county line."
I stared at my son—the child I had protected from his father’s sharp temper for three decades.
"You knew he was going to throw me out on the street?" I asked, my voice a hollow whisper.
May you like
"It’s not the street, Mom, it’s a motel," Forest scoffed, shaking his head with exasperation. "Just cooperate. Don't embarrass me in front of the board."
He turned on his heel and walked out the door, leaving me alone in the house where I had spent my entire adult life.
