The news of my son’s divorce felt like a slap in the face I didn't see coming, though maybe I should have. He called me, voice rough, just after dinner, and the clatter of the dishes I was washing seemed to get impossibly loud in the sudden quiet of the house. He said, "It's over, Ma." And it wasn't a question. The words hung in the air, heavy and sharp, like the way the wind sometimes rattles the windows when a storm is brewing. I just… stood there, the warm dishwater going cold around my hands, wondering if I'd somehow handed him the storm myself. I remember my husband, his father, and me, always circling each other like two stray dogs eyeing the same scrap of food. Not biting, not really, but that low growl was always there, just under the surface of things. The silences were the worst, thick with unspoken accusations, each breath a little too loud, each step a deliberate thud. We never screamed much, just that slow, steady drip of resentment that wore away at everything. He saw it, of course. Kids always do, even when you think you’re being clever and hiding it behind closed doors. You think they don’t notice the way you avoid each other’s eyes over dinner, or how the TV is always just a little too loud in the evenings. He’d come home from school, drop his backpack by the door, and the whole house would just… tighten. I’d try to make things cheerful, bake him his favorite cookies, ask about his day, but I could feel the tension, a spiderweb clinging to everything. And he could too. He’d disappear into his room, the door clicking shut, and I’d just listen to the quiet, wondering if I was doing it all wrong. I remember one time, he must have been ten, he asked me, "Why don't you guys laugh anymore?" My throat just closed up. What do you even say to that? I mumbled something about being tired from work, the usual excuses you pull from the worn-out pile. Now, with his own marriage in pieces, I can’t stop replaying those quiet, simmering years. All those unspoken things, all those tight smiles and brittle politeness… did that etch itself into him? Did he learn that love was supposed to feel like walking on eggshells, or that arguments meant the end of everything, so it was better to just let things fester? I see him now, a grown man, and I just want to shake him, tell him to fight for it, to scream if he has to, but not to just let it die in silence like we did. But then I think, what right do I have to say any of that? Am I the only mother who looks at her son’s heartbreak and sees her own failures reflected back? Like I accidentally taught him the wrong song to sing, and now he’s humming a sad, broken tune. The weight of it feels like a brick in my chest sometimes. I keep thinking, if only we’d done things differently, if only we’d known how to fix what was broken between us instead of just letting it crumble, would he be standing here now with a whole heart? I just… I don’t know.