After my apartment collapsed, I went to my daughter’s to ask if I could stay with her for a while, but her husband only cracked the door open one side and said the house was already full and they couldn’t take anyone else in. So I ended up calling my former employer’s son—the boy I’d raised as my own, now a successful surgeon—who arrived in a black SUV and completely changed the situation.
The building shook at 3 a.m. It wasn’t an earthquake. It was the sound of concrete cracking like old bones. I woke up with dust in my mouth and the ceiling cracked above my head. At 65, I’d seen a lot, but I never imagined my home would turn into a death trap.
The firefighters arrived shouting,
« Evacuate! Evacuate now! »
I ran barefoot down the stairs, carrying only my purse and a photo of my daughter as a child. Outside, under the red lights of police cars, an inspector sealed the entrance with yellow tape. Building condemned, risk of total collapse.
Thirty-two years living in that apartment. Thirty-two years of memories swallowed by the rubble. And there I was, in the street, with nothing but the clothes on my back.
I called Beth, my only daughter, my blood, the woman to whom I had given everything, even when I had nothing to give. The phone rang five times before she answered, her voice irritated.
« Mom, it’s 4 a.m. »
I explained everything to her. The collapse, the evacuation, the firefighters, the inspector. I told her I just needed to stay at her place for a few days while I figured things out.
There was a long silence, much too long. Then I heard the voice of Robert, my son-in-law, in the background.
« Tell her no. You know how she is. She’ll stay forever. »
Beth sighed.
“Mom, Robert is right. We have our routine. The children have their activities. We can’t turn everything upside down to…”
She didn’t finish her sentence. It wasn’t necessary.
I hung up with trembling hands.
Anyway, I drove to her place. I had nowhere else to go. I rang the bell. Robert opened the door a crack, blocking the way with his body. His face showed cold irritation.
« Mary, we’ve already talked about this on the phone. It’s not the right time. »
I begged him. I said I just needed the couch. A week, anything.
He shook his head with that superior look he’d always had.
« Look, I’m going to be frank. You’re going to disrupt our routine. The children will lose their bearings. And frankly, I don’t have room for a parasite who brings nothing but problems and needs. »
Parasite.
The word lodged itself in my chest like a rusty knife.
I tried to answer, but Beth appeared behind him, my own daughter, the baby I had cuddled, the little girl whose scraped knees I had bandaged dozens of times. She looked at me with cold, distant eyes, as if I were a strange, unwelcome neighbor.
« Mom, I already told you we can’t. Go to a shelter or something. »
And she closed the door.
The sound of the lock was the last thing I heard before I found myself alone on the sidewalk, in the dawn light.
I walked back to my old car, a 2005 Toyota with a broken bumper and a broken air conditioner. I sat in the driver’s seat and looked at my hands. Wrinkled hands, sun-stained, deformed by decades of work. Hands that had cleaned other people’s houses. Hands that had prepared thousands of meals. Hands that had cared for children who weren’t mine while my own daughter grew up without me.
And now, those hands had nothing left. No home, no family, no dignity.
The tears came in violent waves, sobs that shook my whole body. I cried for the lost apartment. I cried for the girl who had rejected me. I cried for years of sacrifices, thinking it all had meaning.
But what hurt the most was remembering why Beth hated me so much.
Because for thirty years, I hadn’t been there for her. Not because I didn’t want to be, but because I was busy being the mother of another child, a boy named Sam, the son of my employer, Lucille. I was his nanny, his everything.
From the day he was born until he was 18, I was the one who raised him, who soothed his fevers, who took him to school, who taught him to read, who dried his tears when others made fun of him because he was a little chubby and wore glasses.
Lucille was always traveling to build her empire, and I stayed in this huge villa raising her son as if he were my own. Better than my own.
Beth complained a thousand times:
« You’re always with that rich kid. You’re never with me. »
She was right.
I worked from Monday to Saturday, twelve hours a day, sometimes more. I came home exhausted, just to sleep and go back out again. Beth’s birthdays, school plays, nights of nightmares… I wasn’t there.
I was with Sam, reading him stories, cooking his favorite meals, being the mother Lucille couldn’t be. And Beth grew up hating me for it. Hating me for choosing a stranger instead of her. Hating me for selling my motherhood to the highest bidder.
I couldn’t blame him. I hated myself for it.
But I needed money. Her father left us when she was three. I was a woman with no education, no family, no options. The job at Lucille’s paid well, very well. It allowed me to give Beth a good school, decent clothes, food every day. A life I’d never had.
I thought that would be enough. That the money would compensate for my absence. I was wrong.
Beth never forgave me. And decades later, that resentment blossomed into a cruel rejection, into that venomous word: parasite.
I spent three nights sleeping in my car, parking in a different spot each day so the police wouldn’t spot me. I used the restrooms at gas stations to freshen up. I ate what I could buy with the few bills I had left: bread, bananas, water.
My body ached. My bones creaked. Sleeping in a car seat at 65 is torture, but I had no choice.
I called some old friends. They all had an excuse.
« Oh, Mary, how sad. But we’re having renovations done. My son just came back home. No room. Have you tried your daughter’s? »
Yes, I tried it at my daughter’s house. And my daughter called me a parasite.
On the fourth day, I saw a post from Beth on social media, a picture of her with her children, all smiles. The caption read:
“Family is everything. But real family, not those people who only show up when they need something. Some mothers only know how to be mothers to other people’s children. Thank God for showing me what not to be.”
The comments were even worse. His friends applauded him.
« Exactly. Boundaries are sacred. »
« Well done for speaking the truth. »
No one knew she was talking about me, but I did. And it hurt even more than being turned away at the door, because it was public. Permanent. Her version of the story, where I was the villain and she was the victim.
That evening, sitting in my car under a flashing streetlight, I took out my phone. I had a contact saved for years, a number I’d never dared to dial. Sam, doctor. I’d saved it when Lucille gave it to me on my retirement day.
« Mary, if you ever need anything, call my son. He will never forget you. »
I had never called before, out of pride. Out of shame. I didn’t want to be that old employee begging for favors. But now, I had no pride left. No shame. Only despair.
With trembling fingers, I typed in the number. One ring, two, three.
» Hello ? «
His voice was deep and confident, with the professional tone of someone used to making important decisions. For a second, I couldn’t speak. It had been almost fifteen years since I’d heard from him. The last time, Sam was eighteen and about to leave for university. Now he was a man, a renowned cardiovascular surgeon, a millionaire, and I was just the old nanny who changed his diapers.
« Hello, who is this? » he insisted.
I swallowed my saliva.
« Sam, it’s me, Mary. »
Her silence lasted only a second, but it felt like an eternity. Then her voice changed completely. It became warm, almost childlike.
« Mary. Mary, it’s been so long. How are you? Where are you? Why haven’t you ever called? »
His enthusiasm broke me. Tears burst forth unexpectedly.
« Sam, I… excuse me for calling you that, but… »
I couldn’t finish. I was choking with sobs.
« Mary, breathe. Calm down. What’s happening? Tell me. »
Her voice was so soft, so worried. I told her everything. The building collapse, the loss of the apartment, the call to Beth, Robert’s refusal, the slammed door, the unwanted word, the nights sleeping in the car. It all came out in a chaotic torrent of pain.
Sam listened without interrupting me. When I finished, there was a short silence. Then his voice vibrated with suppressed anger.
« Give me your exact location. Now. »
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