I told him he had put my mother on an air mattress in a basement for four days while I was away and told her to use a utility sink. I told him ambush was a strong word for a woman who responded to that with paperwork instead of a moving truck.
He told me his brother’s wife would never treat him this way.
I told him his brother’s wife had not found her mother lying on a concrete floor with medication arranged on a bucket.
Then I told him something I had been considering since the moment I walked into the basement.
I told him the marriage was over.
Not because of the postnuptial agreement. Not because of the deed. Because a man who responds to his mother-in-law’s chemotherapy by rearranging her into a basement so he can install a gaming monitor is not a man experiencing a lapse in judgment. He is a man revealing a value system, and the value system places his comfort above another person’s survival.
