“Money doesn’t grow on trees. Maybe you should try earning some.”
Even when our children visited, he humiliated me in front of them.
“Your mother has had a twenty-year vacation at my expense!”
Everyone laughed awkwardly.
I smiled, but inside, something broke a little more each time.
Last Sunday, during dinner, our daughter Emily asked why I never traveled or bought myself beautiful clothes.
Before I could answer, Robert laughed.
“Travel? With what money? She’s never earned a dollar in her life!”
Then he turned toward me.
“You should be grateful I kept you all these years. Without me, you’d have nothing.”
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I sat in our dark kitchen, staring at the family photographs on the wall.
Thirty-eight years of marriage. Two children. Thousands of meals. Countless sacrifices.
And somehow, at sixty, I had become invisible in my own home.The next morning, Robert complained that his breakfast was five minutes late.