Melissa shrugged. “It’s better this way.”
Linda’s voice cracked as she looked at her son. “Mark… sweetheart, I raised you alone.
I worked two jobs. I skipped meals so you could eat. I—”
Melissa rolled her eyes.
“And here we go with the guilt trips.”
Mark lifted his hands helplessly. “Mom… we just need space.”
Linda tried to breathe. “Space for how long?”
Melissa answered instantly.
“Forever.”
Mark closed his eyes, but he didn’t deny it. Linda felt the world collapse under her feet. Her son — the baby she rocked to sleep, the boy she protected from every storm —
was choosing someone else.
Choosing a woman who didn’t want her to exist in his life. Linda’s voice came out small. “If you walk out now… you might lose me for good.”
Mark hesitated.
Then Melissa grabbed his arm. “We’re done here.”
And Mark followed her. He walked out of the beach house.
He didn’t look back. Linda fell onto the couch, shaking, staring at the American flag waving outside the window — a flag she had kept because Mark used to salute it every morning as a child. The house was silent.
For the first time in her life…
Linda felt truly alone. **
But two months later…
Mark returned. Alone.
With tears in his eyes. “Mom… Melissa left me,” he whispered. “She said I was ‘too attached’ to my family.
She took the baby and moved across the country.”
Linda’s breath caught. He dropped to his knees. “I should’ve listened to you.
I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry.”
Linda held his face in her trembling hands. “Son… I never stopped loving you. But now you understand something:
Anyone who asks you to abandon your own mother…
never loved you to begin with.”
They cried together — the ocean roaring behind them.
And for the first time in months, Linda felt hope again. Her son was home.
