“My sake?” Wesley laughed incredulously. “You threw my pregnant wife onto the street for my sake?”
“She was changing you!” Edith screamed. “Before she came, you listened to me and this house was mine!”
“You still matter to me, but you do not matter more than my daughter’s life,” Wesley said firmly.
“I gave you life!” Edith shrieked.
“And Cassandra is giving life to my child, whom you tried to hurt,” Wesley countered.
The older aunt finally spoke up and told Edith that she had gone too far this time. Edith realized she was losing her audience and began to cry out of pure anger.
“I wrecked that room because I won’t let a stranger boss me around in my own home,” Edith finally admitted.
Wesley felt something inside of him snap for good. “The deed is in both of our names, Mother.”
“I am starting the legal process to divide the property today,” he announced. “You will never touch another item belonging to my wife or daughter.”
Edith looked as if she had been slapped across the face. “Are you kicking your own mother out?”
“No, I am setting the boundary I should have set years ago,” Wesley replied. “I am leaving tonight, and you are finished making decisions for me.”
Edith’s brother tried to calm the situation, but the damage was irreversible. Edith shouted that Wesley would regret choosing a “stranger” over his mother.
“No,” Wesley said while walking toward the door. “You are the one who lost me.”
That night, with Simon’s help, Wesley moved everything out of the house. He packed the clothes, the documents, and the small pieces of the crib that weren’t broken.
When he saw the empty drawer where the baby’s first shoes used to be, he felt a wave of crushing guilt. He realized that his mother hadn’t changed overnight; she had always been this way.
He had simply become so used to giving in that he didn’t see when his silence became a weapon against his wife. He returned to Jenna’s apartment just as the sun was beginning to rise.
Cassandra was still awake and waiting for him in the living room. When she saw him carrying the pieces of the crib, her lower lip trembled.
Wesley knelt down in front of her and took her hands in his. “I failed you by asking for patience when I should have been protecting you.”
Cassandra wept quietly into his shoulder. It wasn’t a cry of weakness, but one of pure exhaustion.