My Dying Husband Used Our Son to Ruin Me

Hayes was waiting in the kitchen when I got home.

I saw him through the doorway before I even took off my coat. Sitting at the table. Shoulders hunched. Something leather-bound in his hands.

I set my bag down slowly. Walked in.

'Mom.' His voice cracked on the word. Like it hurt him to say it.

I stopped in the doorway. 'Hayes.'

He held up the journal. Brown leather. Gold clasp. The kind of thing you'd buy to look important. 'Did you know about this?'

My chest tightened. 'What is it?'

'Dad's diary.' He opened it. Flipped through pages covered in Colter's handwriting. 'From before you got married. From when he was with her.'

I didn't move.

Hayes's hands were shaking. 'He loved her. He really loved her. And you—' He stopped. Swallowed hard. 'You made her leave.'

'Hayes—'

'Don't.' He stood up. Fast. The chair scraped across the tile. 'Don't lie to me. It's all here. How you followed them. How you threatened her. How you told her if she didn't disappear, you'd ruin Dad's business. You drove her away because you wanted him for yourself.'

I stared at my son. At his red-rimmed eyes. At the way he was gripping that journal like it was a life raft.

'That's not true,' I said quietly.

He laughed. It sounded wrong. Bitter. Too old for sixteen. 'Of course you'd say that. You've been lying for years. Making him stay in this—this cage while she was out there and he—' His voice broke. 'He's dying, Mom. He's dying and all he wants is to see her one more time and you won't even let him have that.'

'Hayes, listen to me—'

'No!' He slammed the diary onto the table. 'I'm done listening. I've listened my whole life. To you telling me how hard you work. How much you sacrifice. How everything you do is for this family.' He stepped closer. 'But it was never for us. It was for you. You wanted the perfect life and the perfect husband and you didn't care who you had to destroy to get it.'

Each word hit like a fist.

I pressed my thumb against my wrist. Felt the bone.

'That diary,' I said carefully. 'It's not real.'

'Stop lying!'

'I'm not lying. Hayes, I can show you—'

'Show me what?' He was shouting now. 'More lies? More excuses? Dad is dying and you're still trying to control everything. Still trying to make yourself the victim.'

I looked at him. At the boy I'd rocked to sleep. The child I'd read to every night for eight years. The teenager who used to tell me about his day over cold pizza at midnight when he couldn't sleep.

He looked at me like I was a stranger.

Like I was the villain.

'I need you to listen,' I said. My voice came out steady. Flat. 'The woman your father is looking for—Demi Herrera—she's not who he thinks she is. She's not some tragic lost love. She—'

'She what?' Hayes's face was flushed. 'She didn't want to marry a man who was already obsessed with someone else? She didn't want to be trapped like you trapped him?'

'She blackmailed me.' The words came out before I could stop them. 'She extorted five million dollars from me. She—'

Hayes laughed again. That wrong, bitter sound. 'Of course. Of course that's the story you'd tell. She's the villain. Everyone's the villain except you.'

'Hayes—'

'Sign the papers.' He pulled a folded document from his back pocket. Threw it onto the table next to the diary. 'Dad's lawyer sent them. Divorce papers. Sign them. Let him go. Let him have one good thing before he dies.'

I looked at the papers. At my son's face. At the diary filled with lies.

Something in my chest went very cold.

'Get out,' I said quietly.

Hayes blinked. 'What?'

'Get out of this kitchen. Go upstairs. I don't want to look at you right now.'

'You don't get to—'

'I said get out!'

My voice cracked on the last word. Sharp. Loud. Not a scream. Worse than a scream.

Hayes stared at me. Eyes wide. Like I'd hit him.

Then he grabbed the diary. Turned. Walked out.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs. Fast. Angry. Then his bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle the walls.

I stood alone in the kitchen.

The divorce papers sat on the table. White. Neat. Waiting.

I picked up the diary. Opened it. Flipped through pages of Colter's handwriting. Dates. Details. Photographs tucked between entries—Colter and Demi on a beach somewhere. Colter and Demi at a restaurant. All of it staged. All of it careful.

All of it lies.

I pulled out my phone. Photographed every page. Every entry. Every staged photograph.

Sent the files to Marcus with a single line: *Document everything.*

Then I set the diary down. Walked to the window. Stood there in the dark.

My son thought I was a monster.

My husband had made sure of it.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and felt nothing at all.