On regular days, the moment a package arrived, she'd send a voice message to the family group chat, loud and cheerful: "Oh my, Maya's spoiling me again! I really shouldn't accept this—don't waste your money next time!"

Then I kept failing to get pregnant.

And day by day, I became invisible to her.

Now this.

So I spend my own money, and I still need her approval? Need her to decide if it was spent "properly"?

She wanted control over my finances too.

The more I thought about it, the more suffocated I felt. I called Alex.

Seven, eight rings before he picked up.

Keyboard clacking in the background. His tone already impatient: "What? I'm swamped—got a pile of reports due."

"Your mom's losing it in the group chat and you haven't noticed?"

I switched to speaker and tossed the phone on the table. "She wants to audit my annual spending. Said if I don't send it, I must be hiding something. Tell me—all these years, the rice, the flour, the cooking oil in that house—when was any of it not paid for by me?"

Alex sighed. "Come on. I thought it was something serious."

"This isn't serious?"

"You know how Mom is. Menopause might be over, but she still overthinks everything when she's bored. She saw too many of those clickbait videos online and got paranoid you're blowing money. She means well—she's looking out for our family."

Listen to that.

This is what men do.

Masters of smoothing things over.

I laughed coldly. "Looking out for us? Looking out for us means putting me on trial in front of every relative? Alex, I'm telling you right now—I'm not sending that bill. If you think your mom's right, then you can start paying the household expenses."

The typing stopped. "Maya, you're being ridiculous. Mom's old. Her mind doesn't turn corners as fast anymore. You're younger, you're educated—why stoop to arguing with an elderly woman?"

"It's a few hundred bucks. Let her talk. You're not going to die from it. Alright, alright—my boss just walked over. We'll talk when I get home."

Beep.

He hung up.

I stared at the black screen, my head throbbing.

So in her son's eyes, his mom is old and doesn't know better, and I'm petty and don't know better.

Only him—stuck in the middle—the real victim here.

That night, Alex came home with a face longer than a mule's.

He threw his briefcase on the couch and yanked at his tie.