I didn’t think my mom would ever need me to step in and help her. She’s always been her own person, after all. That is, until my new stepdad showed his true colors.
I’m 26F, my mom is 49, and both of us recently had to reevaluate how much we trust those closest to us.
For context, my dad died when I was 15, and my mom, Lydia, spent almost a decade alone.
She was that soft but strong type of woman who wore pink lipstick to the grocery store and pearl clips in her curls while looking through bills at the kitchen table.
She worked; she kept the condo cute; she took herself to movies, but she never really dated. She’d say, “I already had my great love, kiddo,” and change the subject.
Then, a little over a year ago, she met Keith. Mid-50s, charming, the kind of guy who brings flowers on the second date and insists on walking on the outside of the sidewalk.
He fixed her leaky sink for free, carried heavy groceries, and always stood up when she entered the room. My friends joked he was like a Hallmark movie character, and honestly, I agreed.
He called me “kiddo” and “sweetheart” and never forgot to ask about my job or my car or the endless stream of plants I was trying not to kill.
When he proposed after six months, it felt fast, but my mom was glowing in a way I’d never seen.
I told myself that she deserves this, and to stop being paranoid.
***
The wedding was small, cute, and a little cheesy.
He cried during his vows, promised to cherish her, protect her, and build a life together. My mom wore a fitted cream dress and her favorite pink lipstick, and the way he looked at her, I really believed he meant it.
If this were a movie, the credits would have rolled there. Real life kept going.
And right after the honeymoon, things started to feel odd.
At first, it was tiny stuff I could have shrugged off if it hadn’t been piling up. Every time I called her, she suddenly had to go.
I’d say, “Hey, Mom, how’s married life?” and she’d laugh, but it was thin, like tissue paper.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m busy,” she’d say.
There’d be a pause, then a clatter, and Keith’s faint voice in the background, like he was hovering.
Then she’d rush off.
Her social media went quiet, which, for my mom, was weird. She used to spam me with outfit-of-the-day selfies and pictures of her plants.
Suddenly, there was dead silence, and one photo of a casserole Keith had made.
When I finally insisted on doing a video call, she angled the camera weirdly low.
No pink lipstick. No pearl clips.
Just a washed-out face and a gray sweatshirt.
“You look tired,” I said.
“Oh, I’m just simplifying life,” she said, like she was reading from a script.
The thing about people you love is you can hear the size of their voice change before you can see it.
Hers was shrinking.
My gut started screaming. So, I stopped asking permission and just drove the three hours to her condo one Saturday morning.
I texted her when I was five minutes away:
“Surprise visit, don’t freak out.”
She didn’t answer. I still had my key.
Walking into that condo felt like walking into a stranger’s house wearing my childhood skin.
The pictures on the wall were the same, but the place smelled like bleach and some harsh men’s body spray instead of my mom’s floral perfume.
I heard raised voices from the living room, and my whole body went cold. I turned the corner and just froze.
My mom was standing barefoot on the hardwood, hair down, clutching her robe closed with both hands like it was armor. Her face was blotchy, eyes wide, breathing shallow.
Keith was next to the couch with a big black trash bag in one hand and her makeup bag in the other.
I watched him tip the makeup bag upside down and dump all of it into the trash bag like it was actual garbage.
“KEITH, what are you doing?” I yelled before my brain could catch up.
He turned as if he’d just been interrupted while organizing Tupperware. Zero shame.
“Oh, hey, kiddo,” he said, like I was early for brunch. “Just helping your mom finally get rid of all this nonsense.”