Part 2Revenge Of The Househusband

I looked at my son. Quietly. Steadily.

A phantom ache throbbed in my chest. This was my flesh and blood. Once, I believed we were a team.

In the previous timeline, when Mona first brought up the divorce, my first thought was of him. He was studying for the Bar exam. He needed his mother’s academic connections and her financial backing. I knew Mona—if I divorced her then, she would have washed her hands of him to pursue her "true love."

And I was just a fifty-year-old man with no career, no savings, and a resume that had been blank for two decades. I couldn't help him. I feared he’d fail his exams, lose his social standing, and never find a partner. So, I bit my tongue. I endured the humiliation. I kept the hollow shell of a marriage together just for his sake.

How was I rewarded? Years later, he was the one who drove me to a dilapidated shack in the middle of nowhere and left me to rot. He didn't even buy me a bag of rice, let alone take me to a doctor.

When I begged him over the phone, he had responded with ice in his voice: "If you die, you die. A useless man like you doesn't contribute anything to society anyway. You're just wasting oxygen."

Remembering that, I smiled faintly. "Don’t worry, Lucas. I’m not going to fight your mother for you. Even if you wanted to come with me, I wouldn't take you."

His expression shifted for a split second, then curdled into a sneer. "Give it a rest. No matter what you say, I’m not choosing you. What can you even do for me?"

"Jordan is like a brother to me. Once he marries Mom, we’ll be closer than ever. He’s got a Master’s degree, he’s young, he’s brilliant—he’s actually a match for a professor like Mom. When you stand next to her, you look like her gardener."

He stuck his tongue out at me like a petulant child. "I’ll have two cultured, educated people taking care of me now. I don’t need you."

He tossed his fork onto the table and sauntered back to his room.

I looked at the remnants of the dinner he’d mostly inhaled. I looked at the laundry drying on the balcony that I had scrubbed. I looked at the potted plants he bought and never watered. I looked at the pet turtle he cried for and then never fed.

I had done everything for him. And in his eyes, all that effort was worthless because it didn't come with a salary. His mother was a professor, so even if she did nothing, she was a giant. I had no job, so even though I carried his entire world on my shoulders, I was trash.

A son like this? I didn’t want him anymore.