“Pack your bags,” I said, my voice dead calm but loud enough to rattle the glass coffee table. “You’re leaving today, and you’re never coming back.”
My mother scoffed, casually adjusting her heavy gold necklace. “You’re evicting your own mother over a clumsy girl and some cheap sugar? I paid the down payment on this house, Thomas. If anyone leaves, it’s her.”
“Wrong,” I said. I didn’t yell. I didn’t have to. “You *co-signed* the original loan. Which my wife and I quietly paid off in full yesterday. The new deed was just finalized this morning. It’s exclusively in *her* name.”
My mother’s smug smile cracked.
I knelt beside my wife, gently wiping a smear of ruined blue frosting from her cheek.
*Blue.*
My mother gasped, her eyes suddenly darting back to the smashed cake. She’d spent three agonizing years obsessing over a male heir to carry on our family name, relentlessly belittling my wife for not delivering one fast enough.
“Is it…?” my mother stammered. She actually dropped to her knees, her manicured fingers trembling as she pointed at the crushed blue crumbs. “A boy?”
“Yes,” I said, pulling my wife safely to her feet and wrapping my arm around her. “But he’s not yours. He will never know your name, and he will never inherit your cruelty.”
I pulled out my phone, opening the home security app. With one tap, the smart locks whirred loudly, instantly deleting my mother’s access codes.
“You have five minutes to walk out that door before I call the police for trespassing,” I said, handing my wife the vibrant bouquet of flowers. “And Mom? Wipe your designer shoes on the way out. You stepped on my son’s first birthday gift.”