Chapter 6 - Living with the Monster
For three days, Colin was locked out of his own life.
With Chloe controlling access to the house and managing the lock re-keying, Colin was forced to do the one thing he had avoided his entire adult life: he had to go stay with his mother at her house.
Without Tessa there to act as a buffer, the reality of living with Janice Vance hit Colin like a sledgehammer.
On the first night, Colin came back from a ten-hour shift at work, exhausted, emotionally drained, and desperate for sleep. He walked into his mother's living room, expecting sympathy.
Instead, Janice handed him a list of grievances.
"Your aunt Marcy wants two hundred dollars for the gas she wasted driving up here," Janice announced, not even looking up from her television screen. "And Lisa’s kids were traumatized by the way your hysterical wife screamed at them. You need to send them a formal apology text tonight."
Colin sank onto the sofa, holding his head in his hands. "Mom... Tessa is in the hospital. My daughter could have been born six weeks early."
"Oh, stop being so dramatic, Colin!" Janice scoffed, waving her hand dismissively. "Tessa is using this pregnancy to control you. She’s playing you for a fool! If you had any spine at all, you’d file for full legal custody right now and leave her."
Colin looked up, staring at his mother as if seeing her clearly for the very first time.
"Leave her?" Colin whispered. "She’s my wife, Mom. She built our home. She cooked for weeks so we’d be prepared for our baby."
"She made lasagna!" Janice spat back. "It’s not like she built a rocket! She treated us like dirt, Colin! And you’re sitting there whimpering over her instead of standing up for your own blood!"
Over the next forty-eight hours, the illusion Colin had maintained for thirty years completely shattered.
He watched his mother order him around like a servant. She criticized his clothes, complained about his salary, and spent hours on the phone with Aunt Marcy gossiping about Tessa, spreading outrageous lies about how Tessa had "attacked" her in the hallway.
When Colin tried to defend Tessa, Janice turned her venom on him, calling him weak, pathetic, and a failure of a son.
Every meal he ate at his mother's cluttered, noisy house reminded him of the quiet, beautiful, organized home Tessa had created for them.
Every time Janice snapped at him, he remembered Tessa’s gentle voice asking him for help—help he had refused to give because he was too terrified of disappointing a woman who didn't actually care about his happiness at all.
On the third night, Colin sat in his old childhood bedroom, staring at his phone.
He opened his photo gallery and scrolled back to a picture taken three months ago. Tessa was sitting on the nursery rug, laughing, holding up a tiny pair of yellow baby socks she had knitted herself. Her face was full of light, trust, and peace.
Then he looked at the group chat text he had sent on the iPad: Don’t worry. Tessa always complains first. Then she caves.
A sudden, overwhelming wave of self-loathing hit Colin so hard he could barely breathe.
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He hadn't been "keeping the peace." He had been a coward. He had thrown the woman who loved him to the wolves just so he wouldn't have to deal with his mother's temper.
He grabbed his coat, walked out of Janice's house while she was mid-sentence screaming about dinner, and drove straight to the hospital.
