To them, it was a gift. To me, it was a test. And they were failing it badly.
The signs had been there for a long time. Trevor stopped treating me like his mother and started treating me like an inconvenience. Kristen insisted I call before visiting,
even though the house was legally mine. They were embarrassed by my car, my clothes, my hands, my age. At gatherings they introduced me as if I were outdated, someone who had simply gotten lucky.
That always made me smile a little. I understood their world better than they thought. I helped build it.
That night everything fell apart over something small that wasn’t really small.
I gave Trevor an antique locket I had carefully restored, the same style his grandmother used to admire. He barely looked at it. He
tossed it aside and said, in front of everyone, that he was tired of me showing up and expecting appreciation in a house that had nothing to do with me anymore.
