One night, I heard my grandmother on the phone. She said, “She’s ruining his life,” and “I told him to leave her, but he won’t listen.” I realized she was talking about my mom after a moment. My heart sank.
I hurried to inform my mom, shocked. She was shocked. She turned to my dad with shaking eyes and asked, “Do you know what your mother’s been saying about me?”
Dad initially seemed perplexed, but then he looked like he was caught up in something he didn’t want to discuss.
He asked what I heard, so I recounted it word-for-word. My mom stared at him, waiting for him to deny it, but he groaned and scratched his forehead. Silence sounded louder than arguments.
Even though I was 23, I felt like a kid again. He finally acknowledged that Grandma had been talking about Mom to him behind her back for months. “She thinks you’re not the right fit for me anymore,” he remarked cautiously, as if navigating a minefield.
Mom’s face turned crimson—not angry red, but hurt red, where your body doesn’t know whether to cry or scream. He was asked to defend her. Not answering right away was enough.
It became a slow-motion argument where no one yells but every sentence cuts. My dad continued saying, “You don’t understand how she is,” as if it was okay. Mama asked him why he allowed his mother poison their marriage.
He said she was overreacting. Mom left the room. After over an hour, she didn’t return.
I thought she got water. Upon her return, she appeared calmer and more determined. She told me to stay out of it, but her eyes kept darting toward the door like she was expecting another blow.
Dad looked at us like we were the problem, tapping his fingers on the table. Strange occurrences happened during the next few days. Dad visited Grandma almost every night “to check on her”.
Mom skipped family dinners. “I’m fine,” she said whenever I mentioned it, but her voice sounded thin like stretched paper. Maybe there was more to the story—something I didn’t know.
I discovered it accidently one afternoon. Looking for tape in the kitchen drawer, I found a crumpled receipt at the back. It was for a luxury supper for two from across town, dated the night Dad stated he was at Grandma’s.
My stomach twisted. It may have been benign, but it came across differently. I tried not to jump to conclusions.
He may have taken a coworker. Maybe Grandma was with him. But when I thought about it, those “maybes” made less sense.
I didn’t tell Mom right away. I needed proof, not just a note. I got it a week later.
While coming home from work, I saw Dad’s car parked outside a little café with a patio, not the one we typically went to. I saw him sitting with an unfamiliar woman. Leaning across the table, she laughed and touched his hand.
He stayed put. A moment of chest tightness prevented me from breathing. After parking lower down, I watched for a while, rattling the steering wheel.
I didn’t snap pictures since I didn’t want to be that person, but the image stuck with me. That night, I told Mom everything. Her tears were absent.
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