The financial investigator called the following morning.
I had been awake for some time.
I was sitting at the little dresser with my records spread out in front of me.
I had gathered the payment information I could find and arranged the photographs on my phone so I could locate them easily.
I wasn't sure exactly what he would ask.
I only knew that I wanted to answer carefully.
When I picked up, he greeted me warmly.
“Loretta, I'm glad you called me.”
I smiled despite myself.
“I wasn't sure you would remember me.”
“Of course I remember you.”
His answer brought back a memory of him sitting at my table with a plate of food, trying to study while the rest of the world carried on around him.
He had been a college student then.
He often arrived hungry and stayed late.
I had never thought much about it.
If someone needed a meal and I had food, I shared it.
He asked how I was doing.
I told him what had happened and explained that I had kept records of the money I had contributed while living in my son's house.
He didn't immediately offer an opinion.
Instead, he asked what kind of records I had.
I explained that I had saved the information about my monthly payments and kept photographs of the room and the broken window latch.
I told him about the washroom, too.
He asked me to preserve the original records and avoid changing anything.
I said I would.
He also reminded me not to draw conclusions from documents before understanding what they showed.
That was sensible advice.
I had spent the previous day looking at every photograph as if it might explain the whole situation.
But a picture of a room was a picture of a room.
A payment record showed that money had been paid.
Neither one could answer every question about what had happened in the house.
I needed to let the facts remain facts.
He asked whether I could explain the payments.
I told him what I remembered and admitted when I wasn't certain about a detail.
He didn't pressure me to guess.
I appreciated that more than I could say.
For much of my life, I had kept track of money because I couldn't afford not to.
When I was raising my son in Columbus, every dollar had a job.
Rent.
Food.
Electricity.
School expenses.
Sometimes there was hardly anything left after the necessary things had been paid.
I learned to save receipts and write down numbers because a mistake could mean going without something important.
Those habits had stayed with me long after my circumstances improved.
Now they were helping me explain my life clearly.
The investigator asked whether I had spoken to the attorney.
“Yes.”
“And are you considering what you want to do next?”
“I am.”
He told me to take my time, preserve my information, and avoid making decisions simply because someone else was pressuring me.
I looked at the small bag on the bed.
That was exactly what I needed to hear.
After we finished talking, I wrote down the points I wanted to discuss with the attorney.
I wanted to understand my practical options.
I wanted to know what information I should keep together.
I wanted to think about where I could stay if I decided I could no longer live in my son's house.
I did not write down a final decision.
I wasn't ready to make one.
But the questions themselves felt important.
For six months, I had treated my future as something that depended entirely on my son's patience.
If he was pleased with me, I could stay.
If he was irritated, I tried to become less noticeable.
If Sloan complained, I searched for a way to avoid another argument.
I had allowed their moods to determine how safe I felt in my own life.
Now I was beginning to understand that I had choices, even if none of them would be easy.
I could ask for help.
I could preserve my records.
I could make plans without first announcing them to my son.
I could decide what I was willing to accept.
Those were ordinary actions.
They were also new to me.
Around midday, I heard my son moving through the hallway.
He stopped outside my door.
“Mom?”
I looked up from my notes.
“Yes?”
“Can we talk about what happened?”
For a moment, I felt hopeful.
I stood and opened the door.
He was looking at the floor rather than at me.
I waited.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I don't think all this needs to become such a big thing.”
The hope faded.
I had expected him to acknowledge the slap.
Instead, he was asking me to reduce its importance.
“I didn't make it happen,” I said.
He looked up.
“I know I shouldn't have hit you.”
It was the closest he had come to admitting what he had done.
I waited for the rest.
He didn't apologize.
He didn't ask whether my cheek still hurt.
He didn't say he would make sure it never happened again.
After a moment, he added, “But you know how things get when everyone keeps arguing.”
I looked at him.
“I asked Sloan to smoke outside.”
He sighed.
“Can we please stop going over this?”
I felt a familiar pressure in my chest.
Not from the smoke this time.
From the old expectation that I would accept half an acknowledgment as the end of the matter.
I could almost hear myself saying that we should move on.
I could almost see myself apologizing for making the morning difficult.
But I didn't say those things.
“I need some time,” I told him.
His expression tightened.
“Time for what?”
“To decide what I need to do.”
He stared at me as if I had spoken in a language he didn't understand.
Then he turned away.
I closed the door gently.
I didn't feel victorious.
I felt frightened, and I felt sad.
But I also felt that I had finally answered a question that had been following me since the moment he struck me.
I could love my son.
I could remember the years when we had been close.
I could hope that he might one day understand what he had done.
And I could still refuse to pretend that everything was normal.
I returned to the dresser and gathered my notes.
The framed graduation photograph remained on the nightstand.
The phone lay beside it.
I picked up the phone and checked that the photographs were still there.
Then I placed it in my pocket.
I had not solved my situation.
I had not decided where I would live or what the next conversation with the attorney would bring.
But I had stopped waiting for my son to decide whether I was allowed to protect myself.
For the first time in months, the next step belonged to me.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: I Thought My Son’s Admission Might Bring Us Back Together, Until I Realized He Wanted Forgiveness Without Facing What He Had Done
The Small Request That Exposed What My Son Had Become, and the Moment I Finally Stopped Making Excuses for Him
Part 8 of 24
