After my mom’s divorce, she found solace in Chris, a charming ex-con who promised a fresh start. For a while, he kept that promise, but one day, a knock on our door led to a shocking revelation: Chris was cheating on Mom.
After Mom divorced Dad, things got rocky for all of us.
“He’s been through some things, but he’s turned his life around,” she said one night after dinner, hands fiddling with the frayed ends of her sleeves. “He’s sweet, polite, and he makes me laugh.”
She had met him while working as a correctional officer at the county jail. That’s where Chris had been, serving time for a DUI. A walking red flag, but he was charming in that “I know I’m trouble, but I’m working on it” kind of way.
Mom said everyone deserves a second chance, and I believed her. We all did.
For a while, things were good. Chris got a job at a fast-food joint, showed up to all his probation meetings, and even started calling us his “kids.”
I’ll admit it felt kind of nice to have a man in the house again to do the heavy lifting and change the oil in Mom’s old Camry.
But then, one day, Chris went to one of his probation check-ins and didn’t came back.
We all sat around the kitchen table that night, glancing at the clock like it might give us answers. Jake tapped his fingers on the wood in a rhythm that set my teeth on edge, and Morgan sat with her head on Mom’s shoulder, eyes half-closed.
When the phone finally rang, we all jumped. I snatched it up before anyone else could reach it.
“Hey, Eli,” Chris’s voice crackled through the line, low and rough like he’d been running a marathon. “I need you to tell your mom I won’t be home for a while. The FBI picked me up when I checked in earlier and took me to Texas.”
I handed the phone over to Mom. It turned out that Chris’s family in Texas had been running drugs and guns for years. The FBI finally caught up with them and had evidence Chris had been riding shotgun during a handoff. By association, he was on the hook too.
Mom pressed her lips so tight they turned white. She didn’t cry. She just went quiet.
“Well,” she said after she hung up and finished explaining it all to us, “he’s gonna need me more than ever now.”
Her voice was steady, but I saw the tremble in her hands as she cleared the table. No one said anything. We all knew better.
Mom called Chris daily and sent him money for snacks and phone minutes. Chris eventually agreed to testify against his family and was allowed to come home before the trial.
He was different, though. Not just thinner, he was meaner too.
At first, he’d have a few beers to “take the edge off.” Then it became six. Then twelve. I stopped counting after that. He didn’t yell at us kids, but Mom? She caught every sharp edge of his words.
“Don’t start with me, Linda,” Chris barked one night, his bloodshot eyes narrow and mean.
Mom leaned against the sink, one hand on her hip, the other gripping the counter like she might break it clean off.
“Don’t talk to me like that, Chris,” she said slowly, the calm before the storm. “Not in front of my kids. Drink your beer and go to bed.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he muttered, flicking the cap across the floor like it was nothing. It skidded under the fridge. “You’re lucky I’m even here.”
I glanced at Jake. His hands were balled into fists under the table. I knew that feeling — the way anger and helplessness mixed until you felt like you might explode.
One night, Chris stumbled in, drunker than usual. He dropped his keys, missed twice before picking them up, and made his way to the couch, where he sprawled out like a king on a throne.Mom was already waiting. She stood at the edge of the room, arms crossed tight over her chest.
Chris squinted at her, rubbing his eyes like she was too bright to look at. “Don’t start, Linda,” he muttered, eyes half-closed. “I’m tired.”
“So am I,” she shot back, her voice louder this time. “Tired of this. Tired of you.”
His head snapped toward her, the slow burn of realization finally catching up. “What are you saying?”
“I’m done,” she said, taking a step forward like she was daring him to argue. “Get your things and go.”
He snorted, low and mean. “Yeah, right.”
“You’ll see,” she replied, walking past him like he didn’t exist. “You’ll see.”
The next morning, she made it real. Jake, Morgan, and I helped her pack his essentials: shoes, clothes, and his old PlayStation. We dumped all of it on the curb in a couple of trash bags. I thought that was the end of it.
It wasn’t. In fact, it was about to get a whole lot worse.
The knock at the door was quick and frantic. I opened it to find Betty, one of Chris’s coworkers. She glanced over her shoulder before stepping inside.
I called for Mom. When she came out, Betty wasted no time.
“There’s something you need to know,” Betty said. “About Chris. He’s been sleeping with Darla. I caught them in the back room. I told him I was reporting it, and he said he’d have me fired.”
Mom blinked slowly, taking in every word like she was filing it away for later use. Her breathing slowed to something too calm to be safe.
“There’s more,” Betty continued.
“Darla’s pregnant.”
Mom blinked again, like she was resetting herself. She pulled out a chair and sat down slowly. Her eyes didn’t leave Betty once.
“I’m sorry, Linda,” Betty said. “I thought you should know.”
Mom didn’t cry. She didn’t scream.
She thanked Betty for telling her about Darla and saw her out. Then she just sat down at the table, fingers tapping in slow, deliberate beats.
“Okay,” she said, finally. “Okay.”
Mom turned to us. “Pack it all. Not just clothes this time — everything. His tools, his collectibles, his framed photos of him fishing. I don’t want anything of Chris’s left in this house.”
We dumped it all on the curb with no order and no care. We were all finished with Chris. When he showed up to collect his things, Mom confronted him about Darla.
He didn’t even try to deny it.
“Darla’s giving me a kid,” he said, voice loud and cutting. “Something you never could.”
That hit hard. But Mom didn’t flinch, at least not then.
After Chris left with his stuff, she broke down on the sofa. We stood around helplessly while she wept.
We were kids, but we weren’t stupid. After seeing Mom wrecked like that, we wanted justice. Jake called Chris’s boss, reporting the whole sordid mess about him and Darla. It didn’t take long for them to fire him.
But Chris didn’t disappear.
He got another job at a different franchise and moved in with Darla. It didn’t sit right with any of us, so we found out who managed his new place. I made the call this time, pretending to be a “concerned employee.”
A week later, Chris was jobless again.
A short while later, he started circling the house in Darla’s car. He’d drive real slow, eyes locked on the front door.
I knew he wasn’t supposed to be behind the wheel — his license was gone after the DUI. So I called it in. It took two weeks, but one day, the cops pulled him over.
When they searched his place, they found guns. He was already a convicted felon, so possession was a big deal. They slapped him with more charges than I could count, and just like that, Chris was gone again.
Chris came back after his sentence, but things weren’t the same.
Darla had packed up and left, taking the baby with her. She filed for child support, too, which was ironic since Chris didn’t have a job. He moved into a friend’s basement, angry, broke, and alone.
As for Mom, she found peace — the real kind this time. She met a man named Gary, a retired fireman who always brought fresh flowers and told her he loved her like it was the first time, every time.
People say karma isn’t real, but I saw it work.
Every twist and turn, every small decision — it all came back around. Chris thought he’d burned us, but he was the one left with nothing.
Mom always told me, “What’s done in the dark will come to light.” She wasn’t wrong.
