“Mom,” he said, stopping two feet away. “I’m here to talk face-to-face.”
“No,” I said. “You’re here to convince me to forget.”
He opened his mouth.
I lifted a hand.
It startled him into silence.
“You think being my son gives you rights to my money, my decisions, my dignity,” I said. “It does not. You didn’t earn those things. You borrowed them.”
His jaw hardened.
“I was trying to help.”
“No,” I said. “You were trying to inherit early.”
He stared at me with that look people get when they are trying to find the old version of you, the easier one, the pliable one they’ve always counted on. I could almost see him sorting through my face for weakness. Apology. Wobble.
He found none.
I opened the front door behind me.
Then I looked at him one last time and said the truest sentence I had spoken in years.
