Don't Call Me Mom. You Haven't Earned the Right.
The first message arrived like a whisper of ice in the London heat.
It slid into Judith Parrish’s private Aura account, a space she curated with the quiet precision of a museum archivist.
A single, stark line from a user named @TeaganHastings.
“Who are you and why are you posting pictures of my boyfriend?”
Judith frowned, her thumb hovering over the glossy image she’d uploaded an hour ago.
It was a photo of her and her son, Kevin, standing before the Tower of London.
Her arm was looped comfortably through his, a casual gesture she’d made a thousand times.
Kevin’s smile was a little tight, she’d noticed, but she had chalked it up to fatigue.
This seven-country European tour was the grand prize, her reward to him for matching into a highly competitive surgical residency program.
It was the culmination of a life architected entirely around his ascent.
Boyfriend? The word felt alien.
Kevin hadn’t mentioned a girlfriend.
Not in the weeks leading up to the trip, not during their long flight, not once across Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Judith typed back a polite, measured response.
“I believe there’s been a misunderstanding. This is my son, Kevin Ballard.”
The reply was instantaneous, sharp and venomous.
“I know who he is. The question is, who are YOU?”
“And what kind of mother clings to her adult son like that? Don’t you have a husband to bother? Oh, wait. I heard he left you. Cold palace, huh? Trying to find your worth through your son? Do you even know what boundaries are?!”
Each word was a perfectly aimed dart.
Judith’s breath caught.
The polite fiction of a misunderstanding evaporated, leaving behind the cold, hard certainty of a deliberate attack.
She pushed herself up from the plush sofa in their suite at The Mayfair Hotel.
The door to Kevin’s adjoining room was slightly ajar.
She found him hunched over his phone, his face illuminated by the screen, whispering.
“Kevin?” she asked, her voice steady despite the tremor in her chest.
He jumped, shoving his phone into his pocket.
“Mom. I... I was just on a call.”
“With Teagan?”
His face paled.
“You know about her?”
“She just messaged me,” Judith said, her voice flat. She held out her phone. “She seems to believe I’m some sort of predator. Her words.”
Kevin wouldn’t meet her eyes. He mumbled, his gaze fixed on the plush carpet.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you. You just… you make it difficult.”
“Difficult?”
“You’re always so involved. This trip… it’s a lot,” he stammered. “It makes me look like a… like a mama’s boy.”
The phrase, coming from his own lips, landed like a physical blow.
“And maybe you shouldn’t post so many pictures of us. Especially the ones where you’re… you know. Touching me.”
Judith stared at the young man before her, the son she had raised, celebrated, and now, apparently, suffocated.
“I see,” she said, her voice dangerously quiet. “So this grand tour, my gift to you, is an embarrassment?”
“No, it’s not that,” he said quickly, a flush creeping up his neck. “It’s just… maybe a trip to the countryside would have been more your speed. Europe is more for people our age.”
Our age. The words created a chasm between them.
“Next time,” he forged on, emboldened by her silence, “you could just give me the money. Teagan and I could have our own trip. Just the two of us. You wouldn’t have to tag along and make things awkward.”
Judith nodded slowly.
“I understand perfectly.”
She turned, walked back into her room, and closed the door, the click of the latch sounding like a final, definitive snap.
She picked up her phone, bypassed her contacts, and dialed a number she knew by heart.
A cheerful voice answered on the second ring. “Parrish residence, you’ve reached Jesse!”
It was the sales consultant from the high-end home gym company she’d recently patronized.
“Jesse,” Judith said, her voice as smooth and cold as marble. “I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m all ears, Ms. Parrish!”
“Call me Mom,” she commanded softly. “And I’ll buy enough equipment to make you salesperson of the year.”
A beat of stunned silence.
Then, an explosion of ecstatic sound.
“Mom! Mom!! You’re the mother I was separated from twenty-five years ago!”
Judith allowed a small, grim smile to touch her lips.
“Good. Now, send me the invoice.”
Her son wanted money? Fine.
She would show him exactly what her money could buy.
And it was so much more than a son.
§02
The argument escalated over the phone.
With Kevin in the next room, Judith could hear his muffled, placating tones.
Then, a sharp, female voice cut through the receiver, loud enough for her to hear through the wall.
“Put your mother on the phone. If you can’t draw the line, I will.”
A moment later, a hesitant knock.
Kevin stood in the doorway, phone extended like a peace offering. Or a bomb.
“Teagan wants to talk to you.”
Judith took the phone, her knuckles white. “This is Judith.”
“Finally,” the voice on the other end purred, dripping with condescension. “It’s Teagan. Kevin’s girlfriend. Since we’re going to be family, I think it’s important we get a few things straight.”
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