Nowa żona mojego syna próbowała delikatnie wepchnąć mnie do „domu seniorów” — nie wiedziała, że ​​już zdecydowałem, kto tak naprawdę się wyprowadza.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said calmly. “I heard.”

“It’s just…” She hesitated. “Well, we already talked to Adrien and he agrees. We’re going to apply for the loan next week. The house is going to be beautiful, Eleanor. You’ll see.”

“And was anyone going to consult me?” I asked.

“Well,” Chloe said, “it’s just… Adrien said you had already accepted that the house was going to be his.”

“Accepting that it might be his someday is not the same as saying it’s his now,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended. “And I definitely did not give permission for anyone to take out a loan in my name.”

“It won’t be in your name,” Chloe clarified quickly. “It’ll be in Adrien’s name.”

A fifteen-thousand-dollar loan to remodel a house that isn’t his.

Chloe fell silent.

For the first time, I think she saw something in my eyes that scared her.

“Eleanor, we just want to improve the house,” she said.

“No,” I replied slowly. “You want to erase me. You want me to leave. You want to take what I built. But you’re in for a surprise.”

And I went to my room before she could answer.

That night during dinner, Adrien brought it up.

“Mom,” he said, “Chloe told me you were upset about the loan.”

“I wasn’t upset, Adrien,” I said calmly. “I was concerned because you are planning to spend fifteen thousand dollars on a house that is still mine without even asking me.”

“But Mom,” he said, “you said the house would be mine someday.”

“Someday, Adrien. Someday. Not today. Not next week. And until that day comes, I am still the owner. I still decide what does and doesn’t get done in this house.”

Chloe jumped in.

“It’s just that we don’t know what you want anymore, Eleanor,” she said. “Sometimes it seems like you want us to leave.”

There it was—the trap, waiting for me to say yes, that I wanted them to leave, so they could play the victims.

But I was learning to play this game.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I said calmly. “I just want respect. Respect in my own home.”

After that dinner, things changed.

Chloe and Linda stopped pretending.

There were no more fake smiles or attempts to be nice.

Now they just ignored me.

They’d walk past me as if I were invisible. They’d talk loudly to each other about their plans, about the remodel, about how they would arrange the rooms when the children arrived.

And Adrien remained stuck in the middle, quiet, uncomfortable, not taking anyone’s side.

One Saturday morning, while I was on my walk with the group around the park, Margaret asked me how things were going.

“Bad,” I told her. “Worse every day. They don’t even pretend anymore. They talk as if I don’t exist.”

“And your son?” she asked.

“My son says nothing,” I said. “He pretends not to see, not to hear.”

Margaret shook her head.

“Eleanor, how long are you going to put up with this?” she asked.

“Not much longer,” I admitted. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

“The right moment for what?” she asked.

“To show them who owns that house,” I said.

Margaret smiled.

“There’s my friend,” she said. “The Eleanor I know.”

That same afternoon, when I got home, I saw something that made me make the final decision.

There was a truck parked in front of my house—a white pickup with the logo of a local construction company on the side.

In the entryway, Chloe was talking to two men carrying rolled-up blueprints.

I approached them slowly.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

Chloe turned and looked at me with a mix of defiance and nervousness.

“It’s the contractors, Eleanor,” she said. “They came to give an estimate for the remodel.”

“The estimate,” I repeated. “Without consulting me.”

“Well, Adrien already gave the okay,” she said, folding her arms. “And—”

“Adrien is not the owner of this house,” I interrupted.

I looked directly at the two men.

“Gentlemen, I’m sorry you came all this way,” I said, “but there will be no remodel. This is my house, and I did not authorize any work.”

One of the men looked at Chloe, confused.

“Ma’am, you called us and said it was urgent we come out and measure,” he said.

“I called them,” Chloe said quickly. “Because I live here and I have a right to improve my home.”

“Your home?” I repeated, and I felt the rage rise in my throat like fire. “Your home, Chloe?”

“Well, Adrien’s home,” she said. “It’s the same thing.”

I turned back to the contractors.

“Gentlemen, this house is in my name. Eleanor Lopez. You can check the public record if you like. And I repeat: there is no work authorized here. So I’m asking you, please, to leave.”

The men looked at each other, uncomfortable. Then one of them nodded.

“Understood, ma’am,” he said. “We’re sorry for the misunderstanding.”

They left.

And I stood there in front of Chloe, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would explode.

“How dare you?” I said. “How dare you call contractors to my house without my permission?”

“It’s because you don’t want to improve anything,” Chloe shot back. Now her voice had no sweetness at all. It was pure venom. “This house is old. It’s ugly. It’s outdated. And you won’t do anything to fix it.”

“Because it’s my house,” I said. “And I like it the way it is.”

“Well, we don’t,” she spat. “We’re going to live here. So we have a right to an opinion.”

“An opinion, yes,” I said. “A decision, no. Because this house is mine, Chloe. Mine. Not yours. Not Adrien’s. Mine.”

“But Adrien said you were going to leave it to him someday,” she protested.

“When I decide to,” I said. “But that day isn’t today. And the way things are going, that day might never come.”

Chloe looked at me like I had slapped her.

She opened her mouth to say something, but just then Linda arrived.

“What happened? Why did the truck leave?” she asked, looking from Chloe to me.

“Because Eleanor kicked them out,” Chloe said, her voice trembling with anger. “Because she doesn’t want us to fix anything. Because she wants us to live in this horrible house forever.”

“Oh, Eleanor,” Linda said, approaching with that superior attitude that bothered me so much. “We get it. You don’t want to cooperate. You don’t want to help. You just want to keep everything as it is because you’re selfish.”

“Selfish,” I repeated. “I’m selfish because I don’t want you to do whatever you please in my own home?”

“This house should belong to your son,” Linda said.

Now her voice was hard, with no pretense of kindness. “A son you emotionally abandoned for years while you worked all day. A son who needed a mother, but you preferred your career.”

I froze.

How dare she.

How dare this woman who didn’t know me, who knew nothing about my life, judge me like that?

“I worked,” I said, my voice shaking, “because Adrien’s father died, and someone had to put food on the table. I worked for thirty years to give him an education, clothes, a roof over his head. I worked to buy this very house. And now you come here, having done nothing, having contributed nothing, and tell me I’m a bad mother?”

“I didn’t say you were a bad mother,” Linda retorted. “I said you abandoned him emotionally. And it’s true. That’s why Adrien is with us now—because we take care of him. We make him feel loved.”

I looked at both of them.

At Chloe, her eyes shining with rage.

At Linda, with that cruel smile, enjoying every second of my pain.

And I understood something very clearly.

This wasn’t just about the house anymore.

This was about destroying me completely.

“Get out of my sight,” I said in a low voice. “Both of you. Now.”

“This is our house too,” Chloe insisted.

“No, it’s not,” I said. “And if you don’t get out of my sight right this minute, I will remove you myself.”

I don’t know what they saw in my eyes, but something made them back down.

They went into the living room, and I went straight to my room.

I locked the door.

I sat on the floor and I cried.

I cried from rage.

I cried from sadness.

I cried for my son who wasn’t there to defend me.

I cried for all the years I worked alone, sacrificed alone, and fought alone to give him a decent life.

And I cried because now, at seventy years old, I had to keep fighting alone.

But after I cried, I wiped my tears.

I stood up and grabbed my phone.

I dialed Mr. Hayes.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Lopez,” he answered. “What can I do for you?”

“I need you to prepare the papers,” I said, and my voice was no longer shaking. “I want Chloe Torres and Linda Torres out of my house.”

“I have to give them thirty days to vacate, correct?” I asked.

“That’s correct,” he said.

“Then I want you to prepare a formal legal notification,” I said. “They have thirty days to vacate my property, and I want you to come and serve it to them personally.”

“Are you sure, Mrs. Lopez?” he asked.

“Completely sure,” I said.

“Very well. I’ll have the documents ready by Monday. When would you like me to deliver them?”

“Next Sunday,” I said. “During lunch. I want the whole family to be present.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line.

“Understood,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

I hung up and took a deep breath.

It was done.

There was no turning back.

And for the first time in months, I felt something like peace.

The following week was the longest of my life.

Every day that passed, I knew what was coming. I knew that Sunday would change everything.

In the meantime, I had to keep living in the same house with Chloe and Linda, pretending everything was normal.

They were acting strange too—whispering to each other, looking at me sideways—but they no longer spoke to me directly. It was as if they were waiting for me to explode, to yell at them, to leave.

But I did none of that.

I just stuck to my routine. I went for my walks. I went to yoga with Margaret. I came home and locked myself in my room.

On Tuesday, Margaret asked if I had spoken to Adrien.

“No,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to him since the incident with the contractors.”

“And he hasn’t come to you?” she asked.

“No,” I answered. “He just holes up in his room with Chloe or leaves early for work. I think he’s afraid to face the situation.”

“Are you scared about what’s going to happen on Sunday?” she asked.

“Yes,” I admitted. “But I’m more scared of staying quiet and letting them walk all over me.”

Margaret nodded.

“You’re doing the right thing, Eleanor,” she said. “You’ll see.”

On Thursday, a message from Chloe came through on the family group chat we had—Adrien, her, and me.

It was strange because no one had written in it for weeks.