"Muriel bought you an outfit, so you should buy her some jewelry to return the gesture."
Seeing my own son take her side this shamelessly, my vision went white and I nearly passed out on the spot.
I shoved the shopping bag straight into his arms.
"$2.99, right? I'll send you the money. As for the gold jewelry, whoever wants it can buy it themselves."
Muriel's expression changed instantly.
"What's your mom trying to say?"
Dylan rushed to her side like a servant attending royalty, loudly flagging down a sales associate and demanding they bring out the most expensive gold piece in the store.
When the associate carried over a gold phoenix crown worth over a million dollars, I turned on my heel and walked away.
Muriel jabbed a finger at my retreating back, seething.
"See? I told you your mom is a conniving snake! She's doing this on purpose to humiliate me!"
"I'm upset now. Are we even going to be okay after this?"
"She's trying to drive a wedge between us!"
Dylan whipped around to face me, red in the face, panic in his eyes.
"Mom! I'd have to buy Muriel gold jewelry for the wedding anyway. Are you seriously going to stand in our way?!"
Stand in their way?
When they needed money, I was "Mom." The second I stopped opening my wallet, I became an obstacle on their path to happily ever after.
I genuinely had no idea what I'd ever done to Muriel to make her despise me from the moment we met.
I turned back calmly and looked at Muriel, who was still carrying on at the top of her lungs beside my son.
"Sweetheart, I have never once tried to come between you and Dylan. Whether your relationship is good or bad, that's something the two of you build together."
"I'm Dylan's mother. That's a fact no one can change."
"So that we can get along better, I'd like to sit down and talk with you. Can we go upstairs and grab a bite to eat?"
But Muriel just let out a cold laugh.
She turned on me, voice sharp as a blade. "You think I can't see through you? Your little schemes are practically hitting me in the face!"
"You know I don't like eating with strangers, and you're deliberately putting me in an uncomfortable position."
"You're too cheap to buy me jewelry, so you're trying to drag me away from the store."
"Let me make something clear. I'm not a three-year-old. Your little tricks don't work on me!"
I took a deep breath and told her I was being wrongly accused.
She didn't hear a word of it.
"I can't reason with a manipulative witch like you who plays dumb on purpose. Fine! Let everyone here be the judge!"
She burst into tears, sobbing loudly, mascara streaking down her cheeks.
Dylan's face crumpled with pity as he reached over to wipe her tears. She shoved him aside.
"If you hadn't pushed me to this point, I would never have brought this up!"
"The very first night I stayed at your place, you made me and Dylan squeeze into that tiny bed of his. I told you clearly that room would be our future bedroom after the wedding, and you should have given us the master. You should have known!"
"Don't tell me that after fifty-something years of living, you couldn't understand what I was saying!"
"And another thing. That night I stayed over, why were you pressing your ear against our bedroom door in the middle of the night?!"
The crowd that had gathered in the mall erupted.
"You're not just playing dumb. You're shameless!"
When those words hit me, I froze where I stood.
She'd been treating me like some kind of rival. Like I was the other woman.
But he was my son.
That night, I'd gotten up to use the bathroom. I walked past their door on the way. And somehow that made me some kind of predator.
The onlookers closed in, murmuring, pointing.
"Overbearing mothers are no joke. Never underestimate how messed up the dynamic can get."
"Some women literally make their sons fill the role of a husband. It's disgusting."
"Families like that are suffocating. Anyone who marries into one is screwed."
Muriel let out a cold, satisfied smirk.
