His eyes filled with tears.
“I was sitting at the bus station when his messages started coming.”
My chest tightened.
“I read them over and over.”
He looked at Marcus.
“I kept thinking, ‘Maybe he’s right.’”
Marcus folded his arms but said nothing.
“I thought about coming home.”
Andrew’s voice cracked.
“I even stood up once.”
He laughed softly, though there was no humor in it.
“Then another message came.”
He unlocked the phone again and scrolled.
“There.”
I read the message.
“If you come back, she’ll choose me. Don’t make her say it to your face.”
I covered my mouth.
“I believed him.”
Andrew looked at me.
“I couldn’t survive hearing those words from you.”
“You never would have.”
“I know that now.” He took a shaky breath. “But I didn’t know it then.”
I closed my eyes.
Every moment of guilt I’d carried for over half a decade became something else.
Rage.
I turned toward Marcus.
“You watched me fall apart.”
He remained silent.
“You let me believe my own son abandoned me.”
“I thought it was kinder.”
“Kinder?”
I almost laughed.
“There is nothing kind about convincing a child his mother is better off without him.”
Marcus finally lost his composure. “I was tired.”
His voice grew louder. “I was tired of every argument, of every neighbor talking, of wondering what people thought when they saw him.”
“There it is,” Andrew said quietly.
Marcus ignored him.
“I wanted a normal family.”
I shook my head.
“You had one.”
He frowned.
“You just refused to accept it.”
The room fell silent again.
Then I walked to the hallway closet.
Marcus looked confused.
“What are you doing?”
I opened the closet and pulled out the large suitcase we’d used for vacations years ago.
Without a word, I carried it into the living room and set it at Marcus’s feet.
He looked from the suitcase to me.
“Liza.”
“You wanted my son to leave.”
I pointed at the suitcase.
“Now it’s your turn.”
His face drained of color.
“You’re throwing me out?”
“You threw away six years of my life.”
He took a step toward me.
“We can fix this.”
I backed away.
“No.”
“You owe me that much.”
“I don’t owe you another minute.”
His voice softened.
“I love you.”
I looked him straight in the eye.
“If you loved me, you would never have made me believe my son stopped loving me.”
He reached for my hand.
I pulled it away.
“Pack your things.”
“Liza.”
