At the foot of the stairs, my son and daughter-in-law leaned against the railing, sneering.
"Mom, are you seriously going to find this Amy woman?" My daughter-in-law's voice dripped with mockery. "You used to get jealous if Dad even said hello to a female colleague. Since when did you become so generous?"
My son scoffed. "Who knows what her game is? Dad's sick, and instead of taking care of him, she's just making a fuss."
His words struck with the precision of a blade, finding the fissures in a heart already fractured by fifty years of neglect.
I could forgive Elijah. The disease had stolen his mind, reverting him to a time before me. To him, I was a stranger keeping him from his true love.
But the man standing before me wasn't senile. He was my son. The boy I had carried, birthed, and nurtured for forty years.
A crushing weight settled in my chest. I doubled over, clutching my sternum, fighting to drag air into seizing lungs.
The realization washed over me, cold and absolute: my life had been a failure.