To ensure she’d be financially secure, I sent her 1,000 dollars each month on top of her pension, totaling 2,000 dollars a month.
With the wedding gift I’d given her, she should have had everything she needed for a good life.
So, it was a shock to find her picking up trash outside the neighborhood and living in the house's smallest, most cluttered room.
She’d never mentioned any of this to me.
I knew she didn’t want to trouble me, which was why she kept her struggles hidden.
Being far away, I hadn’t picked up on the signs sooner.
I felt a pang of regret for not noticing her distress earlier.
Whenever I called, she’d cut the conversation short, and her text replies were slow.
Eventually, I reached out to my aunt back home.
She hesitated before revealing the truth.
Mom had remarried to avoid being a burden to me, but she was deeply unhappy in her new life.
Cody’s ex-wife began showing up regularly, taking items from the house and eventually made excuses to let her younger son move in permanently.
Cody’s sister also moved in, continuously finding fault with my mom and treating her with hostility.
Mom kept all of this from my aunt, worried about adding to my stress or disrupting my life.
The most disturbing revelation was that Cody was still in touch with his ex-wife, though my aunt was too fearful to share this with Mom.
In our hometown, the stigma surrounding second marriages was already harsh. A second divorce would be devastating for Mom’s reputation.
“Reina, the ribs are ready,” Mom called, setting a plate of mouthwatering ribs on the table and gesturing for me to come over.
I snapped back to reality, quickly taking my seat. Just as I was about to dig in, I noticed something was missing.
“Mom, where’s the gold bracelet I gave you? Aren’t you wearing it anymore?”
Mom’s hand instinctively pulled away, and she pushed the water glass toward me.
“I found it a bit inconvenient to wear while working, so I put it away.”
I had bought her that bracelet as a wedding gift when she remarried, and she had been so fond of it that she wore it all the time, even while sleeping or showering. It was odd that she’d suddenly stopped wearing it.
Just as I was about to ask something, Mom’s phone rang.
She gave me a brief, uneasy glance before slipping into the study, carefully shutting the door behind her.
I quietly approached the study door and pressed my ear against it.