“No,” Megan said evenly. “You don’t get a free pass just because you’re his mother.”
“Don’t get a free pass?” Linda let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “You’re going to stand there and explain to me what I’m allowed to do? I raised him alone. I worked two jobs. I gave him everything I had—”
“And that entitles you to take cash out of our dresser?” Megan cut in. “That’s a very creative understanding of gratitude.”
“I don’t owe you explanations!” Linda snapped. “He is my son. If I need something, he helps me.”
“Helping means you ask and we agree,” Megan shot back. “It doesn’t mean you walk in, open drawers, pocket money, and then act offended when someone notices.”
Jason looked from his wife to his mother like a man trapped between two moving trains.
“Mom… did you take it?” he asked quietly.
Linda turned on him as if he’d slapped her.
“You too? You’re asking your own mother that? I can’t believe this.”
“Just answer.”
“What am I supposed to say?” she demanded. “That my utility bill went up? That I had to send the neighbor money for the water at the cabin? I was going to ask you, but it’s always ‘Mom, later,’ ‘Mom, not now,’ ‘Mom, after payday.’ Should I have stood there with my hand out while your wife looked at me like I’d spit in her soup?”
“So you did take it,” Megan said softly.
“I did not steal!” Linda nearly shouted. “I took money from my son. Temporarily. I would’ve paid it back.”
“When? Sometime next century?” Megan stepped closer. “It’s been ‘temporary’ for a month now.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not the one going through someone else’s drawers.”
“Someone else’s?” Linda’s voice rose. “My son’s home is ‘someone else’s’ to me? Jason, do you hear how she talks about me?”
“Mom, that’s not the point,” he muttered.
“It is exactly the point!” Linda jabbed a finger toward Megan. “She’s never liked me. I saw it at the wedding. Smiling with those calculating eyes. Everything organized, everything controlled. ‘Jason, don’t sit there. Jason, don’t eat that. Jason, don’t give money to your mother.’ Very convenient arrangement.”
“First of all, it’s Jason, not ‘Jasonny.’ He’s thirty-two,” Megan replied sharply. “Second, if I didn’t keep things organized, we’d be living on air and good intentions. Because someone in this apartment specializes in bringing home a paycheck and saying, ‘We’ll figure it out somehow.’”
“There you go again,” Jason said weakly.
“Yes, again. Because this is my life, not a TV show where we can skip the boring episodes.”
Megan turned abruptly, walked to the dresser, and pulled out a notebook and pen.
“All right. Since everyone here likes to talk about ‘help,’ let’s calculate the help.”
Linda narrowed her eyes. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
“No. I’ve just decided we’re going to start documenting reality. On the fifth—three hundred dollars gone. On the ninth—two hundred. On the fourteenth—another five. Today—five more. That’s fifteen hundred total. And that doesn’t include groceries that mysteriously disappear after your ‘quick visits.’ Salmon. Coffee. Good cheese—the kind that doesn’t taste like cardboard. Cleaning supplies. Does detergent reproduce on its own at your place?”
“You’re petty.”
“I’m exhausted. That’s a different condition.”
“What are you trying to prove?”
“That I’m done pretending nothing is happening.”
Jason cleared his throat. “Meg, maybe we don’t need to do this like—”
“Like what? Politely? With background music and a slideshow? ‘Dear Linda, we’ve noticed unexplained cash losses. Would you mind stealing a little more quietly?’”
Even Jason let out a short, involuntary snort. Megan shot him a look immediately.
“Don’t laugh. You’re not an observer in this story. You’re an accomplice under the charge of convenient cowardice.”
“Thank you, dear wife,” he muttered.
“You’re welcome.”
Linda lifted her chin.
“Look at this, Jason. This is how your mother is spoken to in your own home.”
“In our home,” Megan corrected.
“That’s irrelevant! The meaning’s the same. You’re letting her humiliate me.”
“Mom,” Jason said, finally meeting her eyes, “you really shouldn’t have taken the money without asking.”
Silence dropped into the room so heavily it seemed even the refrigerator quieted.
“What did you say?” Linda asked slowly.
“You shouldn’t have taken it,” he repeated, more firmly now. “It wasn’t right.”
“Not right?” She gave him a look as if he’d sprouted horns. “And what is right? Sitting under her heel and repeating her words?”
“They’re not her words. It’s a fact.”
“Oh, a fact. Listen to you. When you needed tuition money, who dealt in facts? When you walked around in winter without a proper coat, who bought you one? When you got yourself into that mess with the motorcycle loan, who bailed you out?”
“Mom, please.”
“No, don’t ‘Mom, please’ me! You’re going to lecture me about right and wrong? At your age I—”
“Exactly,” Megan cut in. “At his age, you were already used to the idea that the world owed you. Including your son.”
“How dare you?”
“Very easily. I’ve had a long day, an empty envelope, and I’m out of patience.”
Linda grabbed the grocery bag from the floor and slammed it onto the side table.
“Fine. You don’t need my food. You don’t need my visits. Wonderful. Just don’t come running when life hits you over the head.”
“Don’t worry,” Megan said calmly. “We’ll manage. But first, please return the keys.”
Linda blinked. “What?”
“The apartment keys. The set with the big keychain. Put them on the table.”
“Are you insane?” Linda gasped. “You’re trying to cut me off from my son?”
“No. I’m securing my home.”
“Jason! Do you hear her? She’s demanding my keys!”
He said nothing. Megan could see his jaw tightening. He hated moments like this—not because they were painful, but because they required a decision. And Jason had always preferred things to resolve themselves without his involvement.
“Jason,” Megan said, her voice turning icy, “either your mother puts the keys on that table right now, or tomorrow I change the locks. And while I’m at it, I’ll reconsider the entire structure of our family life. You’ll have plenty of time to fulfill your filial duties then.”
Linda looked at her son almost defiantly.
“Well? Say something. Or have you fully committed to being an accessory to her bank account?”
A muscle twitched in Jason’s cheek.
“Mom, don’t.”
“I’m not the one turning this into a circus!”
Megan held her gaze steadily.
“It’s not a circus. It’s a conversation.”