My Daughter-in-Law Made Me Eat from a Dog Bowl,So I Took Everything Back

"Mom, you're lucky Yvonne isn't making a bigger deal out of this. If you ask me, you owe her an apology."

My son's absurd words nearly made me black out from rage.

She was the one who gave me a dog bowl. She was the one who expected me to eat out of it like an animal.

And somehow, I was the one who owed her an apology.

There wasn't a universe where that made sense.

And I, Janet Abbott, would never accept it.

I unbuckled my seatbelt, grabbed the bowl of noodles, and dumped every last drop onto the passenger seat.

"Cary, listen to me carefully. She's the one who was wrong. I will not apologize."

His eyes went wide as noodles and broth oozed across the leather upholstery.

"Oh, and one more thing. You two wanted boundaries between us and your father."

"Fine. Your father and I will give you exactly what you asked for."

I hailed a cab to the hospital.

During the ride, I tallied up everything Bryan and I had given Cary since his wedding.

The house: 2,100 square feet in the best school district in town.

The car: a brand-new BMW, seventy thousand dollars.

Every single month, without fail, Bryan and I wired them a thousand dollars to help support their little household.

Thank God that when Cary got married, I'd listened to my oldest friend's advice. The house and the car were both in Bryan's name and mine.

The plan had always been to transfer the titles once they had children.

Now there was no need.

I pulled up Stuart Lambert's number.

"Stuart, I've got a house to sell. As long as it moves this week, you set the price. I don't care what it goes for."

"There's also a car. Same terms."

"One thing, though. There are people living in the house, and I don't have the car keys on me. That might complicate things."

A real estate agent who'd just been told price was no object?

He agreed before I even finished the sentence.

Bryan would be discharged within the week. Once the house and car were dealt with, Cary and Yvonne could have all the boundaries they wanted.

At the hospital, I set the noodles I'd bought on the bedside table.

Bryan patted my hand gently. "This is my fault. I shouldn't have made such an unreasonable request. They're young. It's normal for them not to want us hovering."

I looked at his face, lined with deep creases, and his hands, dotted with needle marks from the IV.

I steadied myself. Then I told him everything, start to finish.

"That ungrateful animal!" Bryan's face flushed crimson. "You're his mother! How could he sit there and watch another woman treat you like that?"

I rubbed his back, trying to calm him down.

"I already confronted him. He didn't just deny it. He defended her the entire time."

"But I'm not letting this go. Not this time."

When I told him about selling the house and the car, the color in his face settled back to normal.

"Sell them. Should've done it a long time ago." He slammed his palm against the table. "All those years we spent raising him, and this is what we got. A monster."

"And that's not all. We're cutting off the monthly allowance too."

Bryan and I were on the exact same page.

But selling the house, the car, and stopping the allowance wasn't the endgame.

Cary and Yvonne wanted boundaries so badly?

Then the jobs Bryan and I had pulled strings to get them could go too.

Yvonne's supervisor had been calling me for months, telling me she was lazy, inefficient, and walked around the office like she owned the place. Every single time, I'd swallowed my pride and begged them to keep her on.

Well. She wanted boundaries.

I'd give her boundaries she'd never forget.

I dialed Luther Mason's number.

"Mr. Mason, it's me. About Cary and Yvonne's contract renewals. Don't factor in any consideration for Bryan or me. Just evaluate them based on their actual work performance."

After I hung up, some of the fury that had been knotted in my chest finally loosened.

My phone buzzed. A WhatsApp message from Stuart.

He'd found buyers for both the house and the car. Title transfers could be completed within three days.

I replied to confirm, then looked over at Bryan, who was recovering well in his hospital bed.

I steeled my resolve.

This time, no matter what kind of life Cary and Yvonne ended up living, it had nothing to do with me anymore. We were getting old. We needed to set boundaries.