Chapter 9 - The Midnight Apology
The freezing rain returned on the tenth of January, encasing the trees of Frederick in a hard shell of ice.
At ten o’clock at night, the security lights above my garage flared on.
I walked to the kitchen window and peered out into the driveway. A beat-up, rusted sedan I had never seen before was parked at the curb, its hazard lights blinking sluggishly. Standing near the porch steps was Michael.
He wasn't wearing his tailored winter coat; he wore a worn canvas jacket, his shoulders hunched against the sleet. He looked thinner, his face gaunt, his eyes hollowed out by sleeplessness and panic.
I didn't open the door. Instead, I pressed the intercom button mounted beside the front entry.
"Michael. Leave the property."
He jumped at the sound of my voice coming through the speaker, spinning around to face the camera lens above the lintel.
"Mom!" he cried out, his voice cracked and raw against the wind. "Mom, please! Don't leave me out here! Just let me talk to you for five minutes!"
"You have nothing to say that can't be said through Arthur Vance."
"Mom, I’m begging you!" He dropped to one knee on the slick stone porch, his hands clasped together in front of his chest. It was a theatrical, desperate gesture, the move of a man who had run out of tricks. "Claire took the boys! She packed her things and went to her sister’s in Delaware! She took the remaining savings from the joint account and left me with the eviction notice!"
"You chose Claire’s greed over your mother’s dignity," I replied through the speaker. "You stood in front of twenty-two people at Christmas and tried to break my spirit so you could steal my home."
"I was desperate!" he sobbed, real tears mixing with the freezing rain on his cheeks. "The business was sinking! The developers were threatening to break my legs if I didn't deliver the parcel! I didn't know what else to do!"
"You could have worked," I said, each word deliberate and cold. "You could have taken an honest job as a framing carpenter. You could have lived in a modest apartment. Instead, you tried to declare your own mother mentally incompetent and throw her out like garbage."
"I’m your son!" he screamed, his voice breaking. "You can’t just throw your son away!"
"A son honors his mother," I said softly. "You stopped being my son the moment you forged that paper. You became a predator. And I do not invite predators into my home."
"Mom! Please! Where am I supposed to go?"
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"You told me to disappear, Michael," I said, remembering every bitter syllable he had spat across my dining table on Christmas Day. "Now it’s your turn to figure out how to survive."
I switched off the intercom, walked into the living room, and drew the heavy velvet curtains shut. Ten minutes later, through the quiet of the house, I heard the rusted engine of his car sputter to life and rattle away into the freezing dark.
