I Politely Asked My Daughter-in-Law Not to Smoke — My Son Slapped Me, But 15 Minutes Later

The palm of his hand cracks against my cheek. Sharp. Hot. Fast. My head snaps to the side. I taste copper. Blood pools in my mouth where my teeth cut the inside of my cheek. I stand there, frozen. One hand rises slowly to touch my burning face. The kitchen spins. Smoke from Sloan’s cigarette curls between us like a ghost. My son just hit me. Deacon. My boy.

The child I raised alone in a cramped apartment in Columbus. The boy I worked double shifts for while his father drank himself into an early grave. The boy whose college tuition I paid with money saved in coffee cans hidden in my closet.

That boy just struck his own mother across the face. «Maybe now you’ll learn to keep quiet,» he says. His voice is flat.

Cold. Like I’m nothing. Like I’m trash he found on his kitchen floor. Hi viewers. Kindly tell us where you’re watching from and what time it is.

I can’t speak. Can’t move. My lungs burn. My chest tightens. I’d only asked one thing. Because the doctor said my lungs are dying. Because emphysema doesn’t care that it’s her house.

«Her rules. Her expensive cigarettes that cost more than my disability check,» Sloan laughs. Not a big laugh. Just a quiet, satisfied sound.

A smirk curls her lips as she takes another drag. Her yoga pants probably cost what I used to make in a week at the factory. Her ponytail sits perfect on her head.

Not a hair out of place. Not a care in the world. Deacon turns away from me. Walks to her.

He kisses her forehead like nothing happened. Like he didn’t just slap his seventy-three-year-old mother hard enough to make her bleed. «Dinner out tonight?» he asks.

«Perfect,» Sloan purrs. She stubs out her cigarette on a plate. A plate I washed this morning. My hands still smell like dish soap.

They leave fifteen minutes later. Deacon’s arm wraps around Sloan’s waist. Her laughter floats back through the open door. I hear their car start.

The engine purrs. They drive away in their Mercedes, the one that cost more than I earned in five years. The house goes silent except for my breathing. Ragged. Painful.

Each inhale feels like swallowing broken glass. I walk to the guest room. No. Not my room. Their guest room.

The one decorated in whites and greys. Cold. Sterile. Like a hospital waiting room where people go to die.

I sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress is too soft. Too expensive. I’ve never been comfortable here. Not in six months.

My phone sits on the nightstand next to the photograph. Deacon at his high school graduation. His smile so proud. My arm around his shoulders.

That was real, wasn’t it? That love existed once, didn’t it? My hand shakes as I pick up the phone. My cheek throbs.

I can feel it swelling. Tomorrow there will be a bruise. A handprint. Evidence.

I scroll through my contacts. Names I haven’t called in years. People who owe me favors. People who remember when I was strong.

When I had power. When I wasn’t invisible. My finger hovers over the first name. Marcus Chen.

I helped him twenty years ago when his wife left. When he was drowning. When he needed someone to believe in him. Now he’s one of the top elder abuse attorneys in Ohio.

I press call. He answers on the second ring. «Loretta? Is that you?»

My voice comes out broken. Weak. «Marcus. I need help.»

«What happened?» I tell him. Not everything. Just enough.

The slap. The smoking. The six months of humiliation. The money they’ve taken from me.

«Four hundred dollars a month in household expenses,» I whisper. «When my disability check is only eleven hundred.» Marcus’s voice goes hard. Steel cold.

«Don’t move anything. Don’t change anything. We’re building a case.»

I make two more calls. Rhonda Washington. Childhood friend. Investigative journalist. Now.

She owes me for the year I took care of her dying mother while she finished college. Then Vincent Torres. Deacon’s old college roommate. The boy I practically raised alongside my own son.

The one who still calls me Mama Loretta. He became a forensic accountant. Specializes in financial abuse cases.

By the time I hang up the third call, I hear their car pulling into the driveway. Sloan’s laughter echoes through the garage. Deacon’s voice rumbles. They’re happy.

Relaxed. Full of wine and good food. I look at my reflection in the mirror above the dresser. The handprint on my cheek glows red.

Angry. Clear. I smile. Let them laugh tonight.

Let them think I’m weak. Let them think I’m broken. Tomorrow? Everything changes.

I was seventeen when I met Deacon’s father, Jimmy Patterson. Handsome in that dangerous way that young girls mistake for excitement. He worked construction.

He drank beer with his buddies after every shift. Promised me the world with a smile that made my knees weak. I got pregnant three months after we married. Jimmy celebrated by getting drunk. Again.

Deacon was born on a Tuesday in March. Seven pounds, four ounces. Perfect. Screaming. Alive.

Jimmy showed up to the hospital six hours late, smelling like whiskey and excuses. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the east side of Columbus. The walls were thin.

The neighbors fought every night. Sirens wailed past our windows. But it was home. It was ours.

I got a job at Morrison Textile Factory when Deacon turned six months old. Second shift. Jimmy promised he’d watch the baby. Most nights I came home to find Deacon crying in his crib.

Diaper full. Bottle empty. Jimmy passed out on the couch with the TV blaring. I worked forty hours a week.

Sometimes fifty. Sometimes sixty when they offered overtime. My feet swelled in my work boots. My hands cracked and bled from the chemicals.

My lungs filled with cotton fibers and second-hand smoke from three hundred workers lighting up during breaks. But I had a coffee can hidden in the back of my closet, behind my winter coats. Behind the boxes of Deacon’s baby clothes I couldn’t throw away.

Every paycheck, I’d put twenty dollars in that can. Sometimes ten if money was tight. Sometimes five if Jimmy’s drinking got worse.

Deacon’s first day of kindergarten, I packed his lunch with the good sandwich meat. Turkey. Not bologna. Not the cheap stuff that tasted like rubber.

Real turkey from the deli counter. I ate ramen noodles for lunch that week. Forty-nine cents a package. Jimmy died when Deacon was twelve.

Liver failure. The doctor said it was impressive he lasted that long. I didn’t cry at the funeral. Neither did Deacon.

We just stood there in our borrowed black clothes, watching them lower a man we barely knew into the ground. Life got easier after that. Quieter. No more yelling.

No more broken promises. No more lies. I picked up extra shifts. Worked weekends.

Holidays. Any time they needed someone, I said yes. The coffee can filled faster. One can became two.

Two became three. Deacon played basketball in high school. Point guard. Fast. Smart.

Good enough to dream about college scholarships. I went to every game. Sat in the bleachers with my thermos of coffee and my aching feet. Cheered until my voice went hoarse.

The scholarship didn’t come. His grades were good but not great. His game was strong but not strong enough. I went home after his final game.