"Mom, did you hear me? Don't come to the house anymore. Yvonne doesn't like it."
I stared at this son of mine, a man whose entire world revolved around his wife. Just because his wife said she didn't like it, he was ready to cast me and his father aside like we were nothing.
"Fine."
That was all I could manage. My heart had gone cold.
"Come on, I'll drive you to the hospital."
He strode ahead without a second thought, never once considering that I was old, that my legs weren't what they used to be, that I couldn't keep up with him.
We had just reached the underground garage when his phone rang. Yvonne's voice came through the speaker.
"Cary, listen carefully. When you bring the car back, it needs to be disinfected. I already mixed the solution. It's in the trunk."
He pulled open the car door, and a sharp, acrid smell hit me like a wall.
I frowned and covered my nose.
The passenger seat, where I had been sitting, was drenched in disinfectant. And that wasn't all. Someone had wrapped the entire seat in plastic bags.
Cary glanced at it and scrambled to explain. "Mom, you know how Yvonne is. She's a germaphobe."
That excuse again.
A germaphobe. Right. She didn't have a germ problem. She had a me problem.
I climbed into the car and pulled the food containers out of the insulated bag. The bowls I'd used to cook Bryan's meal.
I turned them over in my hands for two seconds, then decided it was time to lay my cards on the table.
"Mom, what are you talking about? A dog bowl? That's impossible."
He was lying.
I knew my son. Whenever he lied, his words came faster, and he swallowed hard between sentences.
I watched him in silence.
"I saw it with my own eyes. The bowl in the dog crate, the one Biscuit uses, is the exact same one."
He glared at me as if I were the unreasonable one.
"How is that possible? You're getting old, Mom. You're imagining things. There's no way Yvonne would make you eat out of a dog bowl. That's ridiculous."
He wouldn't admit it. Fine.
I lifted the bowl of food and pulled out a pair of disposable chopsticks.
"If it's not a dog bowl, then eat this. Finish it, and I'll believe you."
The color drained from his face.
He inched backward.
"Mom, you made this for Dad with your own hands. How could I eat it?"
"Stop making a scene. The food's going to get cold."
I knew he was guilty. I set the chopsticks down.
"Cary. You're lying."
He cut me off before I could say another word. "I'm not—"
"Look in the mirror. Look at your face right now."
Beads of sweat the size of soybeans covered his forehead.
"It's the disinfectant fumes. That's all."
So he did know the disinfectant smelled awful. Yet he hadn't lifted a finger to stop Yvonne from treating me like I was some kind of biohazard.
"I heard her through the door, Cary. Yvonne said it herself."
His eyes darted away. "Impossible. You definitely heard wrong."
"Not while I'm around. Yvonne would never do something like that."
"Just put the bowl away, Mom."
He fumbled to close up the containers I'd opened, terrified I'd force him to eat from the dog bowl again.
"Mom, Yvonne is just a germaphobe. She doesn't mean any harm."
I let out a cold laugh. "She already made me eat out of a dog bowl. And you call that no harm?"
"Didn't she also say that if there's a next time, it won't be this simple?"
"Tell me, Cary. Next time I come over for a meal, is she going to cook my rice with water from the toilet?"
One question after another, and he had no answer for any of them.
But he still refused to admit it.
I pointed at the plastic sheeting on the passenger seat, still crackling under me.
"If she doesn't look down on me, then what is all this?"
Cary stammered. "She's a germaphobe. I mean, you were at the hospital. There are germs there. She's just being cautious."
I pointed at the driver's seat. Then at the back row.
