“I don’t want to lie anymore.”
“I’ve been seeing Michael for three months. He makes me happy.”
“Michael?”
She nodded. That’s when it hit me.
“You mean… my stepfather?”
She didn’t even flinch. “He was there for me when you weren’t.”
The ground disappeared beneath my feet. While I was mourning, my wife had been having an affair… with my stepfather!
That’s when it hit me.
The two people left in the world who were supposed to love me most had betrayed me.
I went to see Michael the next day. I confronted him the moment he opened the front door.
“Please, tell me this is a mistake, that you and Iris aren’t… it can’t be true.”
He smiled at me.
“Well, you can’t tell your heart who to love, right?”
He shrugged like we were talking about the weather. “It just happened.”
Their audacity was incredible.
I confronted him the moment he opened the front door.
The divorce was a blur.
I didn’t fight for much. I just wanted to be away from them both. I spent six months trying to piece my life back together, one lonely day at a time.
Then, the phone rang.
It was Michael.
“Hey, son! I’ve got some great news. Iris and I are getting married next month. We want you there. You’re like a son to me, after all. Iris says she doesn’t mind if you come.”
I spent six months trying to piece my life back together.
I have never felt such rage before. It was like a wildfire burning in my limbs and roaring through my skull.
For six months, they hadn’t checked on me.
They’d never apologized either, and now he wanted me to watch him marry my ex-wife?
I wanted to tell him exactly what he could do with his invitation, but as the words came together, I got a brilliant idea.
“I’ll be there.”
I spent the next few weeks working on a very special gift.
He wanted me to watch him marry my ex-wife?
I walked into the wedding venue wearing my best suit.
I saw people I recognized — aunts, uncles, and old friends of my mother. They looked at me with a mix of pity and confusion.
When it was time for gifts, I had two movers bring in a massive wooden crate.
It was huge!
The room went silent as they set it down in the center of the floor.
Iris and Michael walked over, looking curious.
I had two movers bring in a massive wooden crate.
They pulled the front panel off the box.
Inside was a large, freestanding tree.
I had spent weeks crafting it from pale wood and thick wire. Metal plaques engraved with names hung from four branches.
A guest near the front frowned and whispered, “What… is that?”
Iris leaned forward for a closer look.
Inside was a large, freestanding tree.
The color drained from her face so fast I thought she might faint.
At the very top of the tree, I had engraved my mother’s name. I included her birth and death dates.
Right next to her, on the same main branch, was Michael’s name.
Underneath them, hanging as their child, was my name.
It was a perfect representation of the family we used to be.
But there was more. I had placed Iris’s name on a broken branch hanging off to the side of mine. It represented our divorce.
It was a perfect representation of the family we used to be.
Michael and Iris stared at it in shocked confusion.
I stepped forward into the circle.
“Seems like there’s been a mistake.”
I reached out and grabbed the branch with Iris’s name on it. With a loud snap, I pulled it completely off the tree.
Then, I moved it up the trunk and placed it directly beside Michael’s name. I had hidden magnets on the back so it clicked perfectly into place.
I looked Iris dead in the eye. “That’s where it belongs now. Isn’t that right, Mother?”
Michael and Iris stared at it in shocked confusion.
The word hit her like a physical blow.
Iris let out a sound that didn’t even resemble a human scream at first. It was sharp, raw, and panicked.
It rose in volume, echoing through the high ceilings of the hall.
“GET THAT OUT OF HERE!” She grabbed at Michael’s arm, her nails digging into his expensive suit. “What is wrong with you?! Why would you do this?!”
Michael just stared at the tree. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.
“Get that out of here!”
