They say words can’t break bones—but some words cut far deeper. Wounds no doctor can see. Wounds that never truly heal.
The living room was dim, just the way I liked it after dusk. The faint scent of jasmine tea still lingered in the air, and the soft ticking of the wall clock filled the silence—something I’d grown oddly fond of in my quieter years.
I was folding laundry when it happened. When he said it.
My son. My only child.
“There’s no room for you here anymore. You need to leave.”
He didn’t stammer. Didn’t even blink. Just stood there—arms folded—speaking like he was addressing a neighbor, not the mother who raised him singlehandedly. The woman who skipped dinners so he could eat, who wore worn-out clothes so he could start school with something new.
