Chapter 2 - The Severed Cord
There was a heavy, suffocating pause on the line.
Then Thomas let out a sharp, mocking laugh that sounded like dry gravel grinding under a boot.
"Are you serious, Mom? You're still holding a grudge because Jenna blocked you?"
"This isn't about a grudge, Thomas," I replied, tracing the wood grain of the mantel Walter had carved with his own hands. "This is about reality."
"The reality is that we are drowning!" he shouted, losing all composure. "Do you want us to lose our home?! Is that what will make you happy?!"
"You bought a four-bedroom house with an in-ground pool in a gated subdivision that costs four thousand dollars a month to maintain," I reminded him gently. "I warned you two years ago that your entry-level salary at the marketing agency couldn't support that lifestyle."
"Jenna deserved a nice home!" he argued defensively. "Everyone our age takes on debt to get started! You and Dad had everything handed to you!"
The sheer ignorance of that statement felt like a slap across my face.
Walter had worked sixty hours a week at the municipal water department for thirty-four years. I had taught thirty kindergarten children every day, grade papers until midnight, and darned the heels of our socks to save pennies for Thomas’s college fund.
We had never taken a vacation outside the state until our twenty-fifth anniversary.
"Your father and I sacrificed every luxury so you wouldn't have to start life with student loans, Thomas," I said, my voice dropping into an icy register he had never heard from me before. "We gave you a debt-free degree, five thousand dollars for your wedding, and twenty-eight thousand dollars over the last fourteen months."
"And now you're cutting us off over six grand?!"
"I am not cutting you off, Thomas," I said softly. "You cut me off forty-two days ago over two hundred and fifty dollars."
"Jenna was emotional!" he yelled. "She was stressed! You can't hold a young woman's temper against her when she's trying to survive!"
"I am seventy-one years old, Thomas," I replied, feeling a strange, liberating weight lift from my chest. "I spent my life caring for others. Now, I am going to care for myself."
"Fine! Keep your damn money!" Thomas screamed into the receiver. "Don't come crying to us when you're eighty and sitting alone in that drafty museum of a house with no one to visit you!"
The call clicked off with a harsh, violent beep.
May you like
I stood motionless in the quiet room for several minutes.
A single tear rolled down my cheek, catching the afternoon sunlight. I didn't wipe it away with sorrow; I wiped it away with the resolve of a woman who had finally decided that enough was enough.
