Derek collapsed back into his chair, burying his face in his hands. He began to weep. “I lost the company, Iris. Then I lost the house. I couldn’t be the man who lost everything twice. Running this place… it was the only thing that made me feel like I was still winning.”
My mother, possessing a heart too pure for this world, instinctively reached a hand out to comfort her son.
Derek violently slapped her hand away without even looking up. He pointed a shaking finger at his wife. “This is all her fault! The chore charts, the apron—it was all her psychotic idea!”
Melissa spun on him, screeching. “My idea?! Who told me his mother was useless and needed to be managed?!”
And there they were. The parasites, turning on each other, cannibalizing their own marriage in front of the neighborhood, while my mother quietly lowered her rejected hand.
