What I did the next day isn’t something I’m proud of, but at that point, I just felt that something had to be done. I changed the locks because I felt that by doing that, I would be able to protect what little I had left. And not only that, but I also told myself that I should get my stepson’s belongings out of his room, and maybe that would teach him a lesson.
It wasn’t like I never went into his room. I was the one who cleaned it every week, but this time, I felt like I was trespassing on his property because I was in there without asking him first. But, so what? That would teach him a lesson, and maybe he would come to his senses and start acting like a kid should, right?
Packing his stuff… God that would make it real and maybe my mind would finally stop racing. I began folding his clothes and putting his books into the couple of boxes that I found under his desk. And as I went through his belongings, I tried not to think about the small things that might remind me that although he was already nineteen, my stepson was still just a kid who was learning how to cope with his pain. Why? Because that would only make things easier for me.
Out of habit, I knelt down to look under his bed. I don’t even know what I was exactly looking for. Maybe a sock he pushed there, who knows.
And then I touched something soft and heavy.
It turned out to be a duffel bag pushed all the way back in the corner. And, my name was on it. I felt both scared and confused, wondering what could that be. I was even afraid to open it and inspect it, but I did it anyway.
Inside, there was an old-fashioned savings account passbook. Like the ones you don’t see any more.
I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around it at first. And then I looked at the deposits, page after page.
Twenty bucks, thirty bucks, a hundred. Those were rather small but consistent deposits from the last four years. They were from summer jobs, weekend side hustles, birthdays. My stepson had been saving money.
What hit me hard was that he had written somewhere among those pages that it was “Mom’s retirement fund.”
He called me “mom,” and it was something he was actually doing for me. I held that passbook like it was alive.
There was also an envelope there that read, “For her birthday. Don’t chicken out this time.”
My birthday was five days away. I thought hard about opening that envelope, and I eventually did, although it felt so wrong. But honestly, I was later glad I did, because it helped fix things out with my stepson.
He wrote that he knew what I was going through after his dad’s passing, and that he was aware times were hard both in terms of finances and emotionally. He also wrote he knew of my fears of growing old alone and without anyone visiting me, but in that letter, he assured me he was always going to be there for me.
“You gave up everything to take care of Dad during his illness. You never complained. Not once. You didn’t have to love him the way you did, and you didn’t have to love me at all. But you did.”
At that moment, I felt both misunderstood and seen at the same time.
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