Marisol was raising her seven-year-old son, Eli, entirely on her own, working overnight shifts at a walk-in clinic in Cedarbrook and driving a fifteen-year-old sedan with a check engine light that never fully went away no matter how many times she had it looked at.
My mother took one look at her, at that first dinner I’d nervously arranged, and decided within about ten minutes that Marisol wasn’t good enough for me.
“She comes with baggage,” she said flatly, once Marisol had stepped away from the table to check on Eli in the other room. “Owen, you’re throwing your entire future away on a woman with someone else’s child already attached to her.”
I told her I was marrying Marisol regardless.
My mother stood up from the table, straightened the jacket of her blazer with two sharp tugs, and looked me directly in the eye with an expression I’d seen exactly twice before in my life, both times right before she cut someone else out of hers entirely.
“If you marry her,” she said, “don’t ever ask me for anything again. You’re choosing that life over the one I built for you.”
So I chose it.
PART 3
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