The war had moved from the shadows into the open.
I knew it was only a matter of time before Nicholas came looking for me.
Sure enough, two days later, he appeared at the retirement community.
He had lost his usual calm and composed demeanor, though still dressed in an expensive suit.
His face was haggard, and his eyes were bloodshot from rage and lack of sleep.
He looked like a cornered animal.
He stormed up to me as I was reading in the garden, not even bothering with a greeting, his voice dripping with accusation.
“Mom, what are you doing? You are this old, and you still want to stir up trouble? My family’s happiness. My happiness. How could you bear to destroy it with your own hands?”
I calmly closed my book and set it aside.
The fear inside me was gone, replaced by a cold disappointment.
“Happiness?”
I looked him straight in the eye.
“You call the hell you created for Hazel happiness? You call your fists and your insults happiness? Do not you dare use that word. You do not deserve it.”
“That is my private family business,” he roared, causing a few people nearby to turn and stare. “I was teaching my wife a lesson. You have to keep a woman in her place, or she will get out of control and walk all over you. You are a woman. You should have understood and taught your daughter in law her place. Instead, you incited her to make trouble.”
Hearing those words, I knew my son was beyond saving.
His father’s toxic, misogynistic ideology had seeped deep into his bones, becoming even more twisted and cunning.
“You are wrong, Nicholas.”
My tone was firm.
“Violence is not discipline. It is a crime. Controlling and trampling on someone is not how you maintain happiness. It is a sign of weakness and sickness. I have been silent for too long. If you can feel any remorse now, if you can recognize your mistakes and go ask for Hazel’s forgiveness, maybe things can still be saved. Change before it is too late.”
I gave him one last chance, a faint hope that some humanity remained in him, but he scoffed at it.
He let out a bitter laugh.
“Change? What mistakes have I made that I need to change? I am successful. I make money. I gave her a life of luxury. All she had to do was stay home, have children, and obey. It was you helping her behind my back who gave her these delusions. You ruined everything.”
Our argument grew louder.
I no longer held back.
“The one who ruined everything is you. It was your brutality that killed Hazel’s love. It was your selfishness that pushed this family to the brink of a cliff.”
“Fine, just fine.”
He seethed, his eyes wide with fury.
“Since you have chosen to side with an outsider against your own son, then you listen to me.”
He pointed a finger at my face, his voice sharp as a knife.
“If you continue to help her, if you agree to this divorce, then from this day forward, the bond between us as mother and son is severed. From now on, I will consider myself as not having a mother.”
My heart ached as if it were being squeezed in a vice, but I did not back down.
I had already lost my son the night I saw him torturing his wife.
The person standing before me now was just a stranger wearing my son’s face.
“Fine,” I said, my voice terrifyingly calm. “If that is what you wish.”
“And do not think a divorce will be that easy,” he spat. “I will never agree to it. I will hire the best lawyers. I will prove to the court that she is mentally ill, incompetent. She will not get a single penny, and she can forget about ever getting custody of any child.”
With that, he turned and stormed off, leaving me alone in the curious and sympathetic gazes of the people around me.
I knew the real war had just begun.
