Last night my son h.i.t me and I didn’t cry. This morning I got out the nice tablecloth, served breakfast like on special occasions, and when he came downstairs smiling he said, “So you finally learned your lesson”… until he saw who was waiting for him at my table.

I defended him way too much, making excuses for his screams when he spoke to me as if I were a clumsy maid in my own home. I justified his demands when he stopped asking for money and started claiming it as his right, ignoring the slammed doors and the constant smell of beer.

Mothers often confuse love with endurance, but that night I came home exhausted from my shift at the local library with aching legs and a bruised pride. Wyatt came into the kitchen and demanded money to go out, but for the first time, I looked him in the eye and told him no.

“No? And who exactly do you think you are talking to right now?” he repeated with a dry, humorless smile.

“I think I am the one who pays for this house, and I am not giving you another penny for your drinking or your lies,” I replied while my hands trembled.

His face changed in a heartbeat as his jaw hardened and his eyes went completely blank.

“Do not talk to me like that,” he growled.

“I am speaking to you the way I should have spoken to you a long time ago,” I said firmly.

He let out an ugly, poisonous laugh and stepped closer to me in the small space.

“Oh, really? Well, it is time you learn your place once and for all,” he said.