Sweet Romance14 min read
He Wanted Me to Say "Mom" — A Memory I Couldn't Swallow
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I never thought the word "mom" would be the hinge of everything.
"Do you have to call me that?" I heard his voice over the clatter of glasses and the muffled laughter in the private room. He stood by the doorway like he owned the air, like he had learned to own rooms the way his father once did.
"I said," I smoothed my skirt and smiled too politely, "call me what you feel comfortable with. I am not picky."
He came forward, slow and deliberate. "You know my name, right?"
"I—" My throat tightened. "You are Cillian."
"Cillian," he said softly, testing it. "Do you know what I want to hear?"
There was something dangerous in the quiet of his voice.
"Then tell me," I said because the room had been noisy and I wanted it to be only between us for a second, because some old soft place in me still liked being noticed.
He stepped closer, eyes dark and unreadable. "Say it," he whispered. "Say 'mom.'"
I flinched. The word landed differently than I expected.
"Are you serious?" I laughed weakly.
He put his hand over mine like he was offering it, and yet it felt like a seal. "Say it."
I did not say "mom" then. I refused. I told myself many reasons: he was my stepson, I had been his father's wife, he was not mine by blood, and my husband Andres had made me promise to care for this boy for ten years. That promise mattered more than any complicated, pulsing sense of guilt and attraction.
"Adelyn," he said my name once, with a kind of hunger that had no business in the mouth of a twenty-three-year-old man looking at a woman in her thirties. "Say 'Adelyn.'"
I could not imagine the face of the woman I had been before grief and compromise rewired me. So I called him "Cillian" again.
"You never told me you'd been so cold," he said, the laugh thin. "I guessed wrong."
He left the party that night and the rumor mill spun. "Your stepson? The one his father hid? Is he dangerous?" friends asked. "He stood at the door like his father," another said, shaking her head.
"He's Cillian Donnelly," I corrected them. "And his father did love me."
They said it like a consolation, and it tasted empty.
1
When Andres Camacho got sick, everything became a single, hard line. He told me three things on his last afternoon: "I love you." "I'm sorry." "Cillian is poor. When I'm gone, please take care of him for ten years. The rest of the estate goes to you."
He said the estate thing with such blind conviction that I had to hold his hand until he slept.
"Cillian is a child from before me," Andres confessed, quiet and ashamed. "I never told you. He is mine."
I had loved Andres with a kind of naïve intensity that made me forgive silence. But when secrets appeared, they were like tiny fissures that spread into a canyon. I had to accept both the boy and the obligation. My world rearranged.
"You'll be okay," I told myself that first winter. "This is the deal. Ten years. Nothing more."
But Cillian did not let "nothing more" hold.
"He brings girls home," my friends gossiped. "He will grow out of it."
He did not.
2
The first time he hauled me from somewhere public and "escorted" me home I tried to be practical.
"You're coming with me," he told me at a noisy dinner where I had gone to unwind. "Get in the car."
"I have plans," I said. "You don't need to—"
He only stared. "You are not going to be alone."
There were many nights later that I would remember that look: the stubbornness that stared back at me like a cold challenge.
"Who is she?" someone whispered as we all stood near the velvet curtain. Someone offered me a drink.
"Don't drink too much," his voice said close to my ear.
I almost smirked. "My stepson policing my drinking now?"
He did not smile. "I'm taking you home."
I let him. Part of me was tired, part of me appreciated being cared for. He carried the air of his father now, softer and more hunger-driven. He moved like a man who had learned to claim things.
"Do you want this?" he asked later, at home, as if the house were a stage rigged for confession.
"For what?" I asked.
"For everything," he said. "What would you call me if this were... ours?"
"You mean, today?" I asked, trying to be distant.
"Always," he said, and there was that line where possessiveness curved into devotion. "Say it."
"Call you what?" I said.
"Adelyn," he breathed. "Not 'boy,' not 'heir,' not 'son.' Say my name when you mean it."
That was the first of many times he asked me to drop the distance between us by language. It was the first of many battles I would lose in silence.
3
"He's young," I told a friend, Paula Collier, once. "He doesn't know the edges yet."
Paula raised an eyebrow. "He doesn't look young when he stands at the head of a room."
"That's just... self-confidence," I replied.
"A little too much," she said. "Be careful."
"Careful for what?"
"You are a woman alone. You have a family name. This boy is an entire life of grievances wrapped into a handsome package. Don't feed him any more reasons to believe he can get everything."
I dismissed it as worry. Women like Paula worry as a profession. But sometimes worry is prophecy.
4
He brought a cake for my birthday that first year—homemade, slightly lopsided, with a childish attempt at piped flowers.
"You made this?" I asked, touched against my will.
"I wanted to," he said, looking away. "You deserve a good one."
"I am not your mother," I said too sharply.
"You don't have to be." He shrugged like it settled nothing at all. "Just eat."
The first year I left it on the table until it rotted. The second year, he returned in a black suit and snow on his coat pockets, and he set down a perfect strawberry shortcake.
"Happy birthday," he said simply, as if we shared a calendar.
He took out a lighter and lit a single candle.
"Make a wish," he said.
"I don't do that," I said.
"Then don't. I'm making one for you," he whispered.
He crouched and watched as if the smoking wick held the slow pulse of our lives. He hugged me then, sudden and gentle.
"Let me hold you," he said. "I want to hold you like this."
For a second I let him. For a second there was comfort. For a second, the world softened.
"Call me..." he began, and his voice broke. "Say my name."
"Say what?" I asked automatically.
"Cillian," he murmured. "Say it softly."
"Son," the word came out by accident because some reflex had been trained in those years of duty. He flinched and then smiled a small private smile.
Later, when his fingers were steady, he put a ring on my finger and said, "This is mine now."
"That was my husband's ring," I told him.
"Now it is yours," he said.
5
It escalated, because obsession grows like mold in damp corners.
He climbed the ladder of a company that was in our name. He learned to wear shoes that made his height intimidating. He sat at the head of long tables and everyone assumed he had the right to lead. When he walked into a room, he carried the promise of fortune—and whatever he desired.
"Adelyn," he whispered one night in his office. "You said 'mom' before. Say it again."
"I did not," I corrected him. I pushed him away.
He made the room feel small. Then he made a lock sure. The sounds of chains clinked like a cruel lullaby.
"You are staying for a while," he said when he sat me on the bed of a room meant to look like my own—books, pictures, a framed photograph I recognized on a shelf.
"Put me down," I said. "I am not—"
"You belong here," he said.
That was the night he put the diamond band on my finger and tightened it like a cuff. He leaned close and asked with his teeth against my ear, "Now what will you call me?"
"Don't," I said.
"Say it," he demanded. "Say 'Cillian.'"
I would not. I had not agreed to this life. I had obeyed a dead man's will out of duty but not submission.
He was violent in ways that cracked the air: the slap that was both punishment and ceremony, the whisper that smelled of smoke and something sweeter, the way his voice slid into the space where love should have been and made it tremble.
6
I escaped because mercy reached me through a friend. Paula and Judy burst through the grand front door like a rescue team. Paul—no, I corrected myself in a flash—Houston Brantley, the driver, helped too. With them, I left the gilded trap and fled back into a life that smelled of laundromats and old late-night talk shows.
"He drugged me," I said later in a police car with someone who had the official air. "He made me sleep."
"He won't get away with it," said Paula, clutching my hand. "We're going to the press."
"He won't," I repeated, less sure.
7
He was the sort of man who thought he could rewrite consequences. He tried to make me love him. He thought that if he could control the narrative—lock me away, put the ring on my finger and bar the door—then his longing would win.
But the world has a way of unspooling secrets in public.
We were at a shareholder meeting—a long, lacquered table, a room of suits and cameras. I had not planned to attend, but my presence became a wedge. He used the meeting to seal deals. He used the meeting to command attention.
I rose to leave early. People were murmuring about quarterly reports and rose-colored projections. I moved toward the door.
He stood up.
"You'll stay," he said, with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"Why?" I asked. "This is a corporate meeting."
He walked toward me the way a satellite falls into orbit: inevitable and coolly precise.
"Because some things must be said in public," he said, and his timing felt rehearsed.
"Excuse me—" whispered an executive beside me, but Cillian had already cleared his throat.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, raising his voice. "Before we discuss numbers, there is a personal matter I would like to address."
The room tilted inward like a theater hushed in the moment before tragedy.
8
"What is this?" somebody hissed. Cameras pivoted. Reporters lifted microphones like metal flowers.
"My stepmother," he began, and there was an odd tenderness in that phrase, as if it were a medal he had forged out of hurt. "Adelyn Rasmussen."
The name had been spoken into my private life so many times in odd intimacies that hearing it fall formalized the thing into a blot on the record.
He propped a tablet on the lectern. A recorded video began to play—our private messages, images of my house, recordings of nights no one gave consent. He had honeycombed evidence into a public showcase.
"She is an actress in my life," he said. "She was my father's woman, then the world's woman. But I expected better."
He took a breath. "She has used people. She has taken gifts. She has taken authority. I will not have her call me a boy when she has taken everything else."
It was performative vindictiveness, and the room reacted like a beehive stung.
"Is this legal?" someone asked. "Where did he get—"
"Where did he get the right?" another voice snapped.
"He says she is manipulative," Cillian went on. "He says she has called him names. He says—"
"Stop," I said, standing up. My voice sounded thin and high in the cavernous room.
"Let her answer," I demanded. The cameras angled toward me like accusation.
He smiled. "She will answer herself," he said. "Or she will be reminded."
9
For the next twenty minutes, a ritual of public unmasking took place.
He played clips that suggested impropriety. He showed screenshots of messages that made it seem as if I had seduced my way into the chair I sat in. He quoted offhand comments I had made at dinners and spun them into a narrative of exploitation.
People gasped. One shareholder—Gerald Weaver—stood and asked for proof. He wanted documents. Cillian produced contracts and bank statements. He placed them on the table like evidence from a prosecutor's file.
"All of these were paid to her," Cillian said. "Are these not the facts?"
Faces turned toward me and their expressions were a mélange: delight, horror, hunger for scandal. A reporter took out his phone. Someone in the back whispered, "This is better than the earnings call."
My world narrowed to a pinprick of sound. I could feel the air change. I could hear the circling of vultures.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked him. My voice did not tremble.
He smiled a sad gape. "Because I was hurt. Because she called me useless. Because she refused to give me a title."
The room filled with quickly born jurors. "Is this true?" "Who will speak for you?" The question ricocheted and then stalled.
10
I stood and listened as he deconstructed me in public. He did not scream. He did not break. He articulated a script of victimhood with the efficiency of someone who had been rehearsing for a long time. Some of it was true: there were exchanges we had, there were moments he had shared that had become his compass. Much of it was a twist—context removed, meaning stripped.
"You took advantage," he said, each syllable an accusation that echoed.
I had to answer. If I did not, the silence would be a verdict.
"You are wrong," I said. I cleared my throat. "You have every right to your feelings about me. But this is not a court. These are private moments you have publicized without context."
He laughed, quick and sharp. "Context? You speak of context? You were my stepmother, and you used that carefully."
"I married your father and kept faith with his dying wish," I said. "I upheld a promise. If duty is a crime, then I am guilty of honoring a dead man's trust."
He slammed a fist on the table. "You never loved me," he cried. "You loved his money. You loved the idea."
A murmur swept the room. People leaned forward like predators ready for the kill.
11
Then the shareholders—some of them women—stood up and walked away. Their expressions were not just professional; they were moral juries. A social commentator in the corner took a picture of my face and posted it. Someone recorded a clip and within minutes my private life was a trending headline.
"You think this is revenge?" I asked him. "This is spectacle."
He answered with a smile that I had not seen before: a razor-edge grin. "Watch."
A woman from the board—Grace McCormick—stood and spoke with the voice of a person who measures power.
"Whatever differences exist between you two," she said slowly, "this board cannot be used as a stage for a private vendetta. Cillian Donnelly, we will investigate the claims you are making. But do not mistake rumors for fact."
Cillian's confidence flickered. For the first time, he seemed to weigh the grand scale of consequences.
He swallowed. "They'll see the truth," he said. "They will know."
12
The public ruined him in slow motion.
Reporters called the next morning. The footage of the meeting made hashtags. Friends texted and styled their replies as if they were on the right side already. My old allies paced. Shareholder confidence wavered, then sank. A board emergency convened and legal counsel arranged statements.
"You could sue," someone advised. "This is defamation."
"I don't want to drag this out," I said. "I just want it to stop."
But the world had noticed. He had used the meeting to gather witnesses and then attempted to wield their gaze like a weapon. What he did not anticipate was the backlash from people who hate being manipulated.
13
At a press conference arranged a week later—the board's attempt to salvage the company's reputation—Cillian was led to a dais.
Telephones were raised. Microphones multiplied.
"We will not have this company be the site of personal vendettas," the chair announced. "Mr. Donnelly, you will publicly retract your claims, or we will proceed with legal and medical evaluations."
He stood like a soldier. "I will tell the truth," he said.
"Then speak," said the chair.
Then the real punishment began.
Cillian's testimony was played back in all its private intensity. The room watched his earlier video, and then watched his face, flush with the knowledge that the court of public opinion had turned. Faces in the audience were not just observers; they were the instruments of social punishment.
People began to rise. One by one—employees, minor shareholders, even junior assistants—stood and read statements.
"I saw you coaxing her to sign," said an assistant, voice trembling, "and you lied to make it sound noble."
"I was uncomfortable," admitted a young marketer. "You forced me to send those emails."
Clips of private exchanges played and were then juxtaposed with his public entitlement. A woman—Leoni David—stood up suddenly. "I was at the dinner," she said. "He offered me money to be quiet."
Her words were small. They compounded.
14
"You're not a victim," Paula said later to his face when she was allowed to speak. "You are a man who has weaponized longing. You bind what you desire and call it affection. You tried to hold her with chains, and that is a crime."
"Chains?" he asked, but he had no answer for the word.
The audience hissed. An older man—Nathan Malik—shook his head. "We trusted this company with our savings. Trust matters more than one man's obsession."
The press smelled blood. Shouts rose when the board revealed medical records: addiction to sedatives, mood instability, a history of manipulative behavior. It was not a trial, but it was public exposure of a private illness—displayed like a specimen.
Cillian's face went pale. He tried to be defiant.
"I was trying to protect what was mine," he said. "They took my father from me. I wanted to keep what he left."
"You stole dignity, not assets," Gerald Weaver snapped, and everyone responded with the same moral disgust.
15
He tried to deny. "This is slander," he said. He laughed for a minute that sounded hollow and rehearsed.
"Denial now is desperation later," Grace said coldly.
Reporters shouted questions. "Did you drug her? Did you coerce her?"
He spat out, "No."
Then the assistant from the legitimate security team stepped forward and presented footage: a door, a hallway, a person carrying a bottle. The footage was grainy, but it was enough. There were receipts. There were witness statements.
The room rose as one: a public crucifixion in the modern age. No one touched him. No one had to. The collective turning of faces and withdrawal of support functioned like a verdict.
Cillian's expression changed in front of everyone. First, there was the small smile of someone trying to salvage dignity. Then, a flash of red crossed his eyes. Then denial. Then, pinched panic. He mouthed, "I'm sorry," and then "no—" and then the shape of his face crumpled.
"Stop," he whispered. "Please."
16
And then he broke.
It was not a cinematic collapse; it was human and raw. He crumpled on the stage like a marionette whose strings had been severed. Nurses ran forward. Someone called an ambulance.
People gathered but no one held him up. Cameras filmed him as he was escorted away—no applause, no pity, only a documented fall. The company's stocks tanked for a day and then steadied. The story ran for weeks.
That day—this public unmasking—was the punishment. He lost public weight: his power, his privacy, his dignity. People who had owed him favors retreated. Calls that had buzzed in his phone stopped. Men who had once been his allies turned their collars up and looked away in the street.
He had wanted to make me small in front of others. The universe obliged in a different way: he was the one made small.
17
After the press frenzy, things returned to a version of normal. But normal had been re-edited. The company reorganized. Cillian received treatment or at least a mandate to under psychiatric care. He disappeared from my daily orbit. I resumed a life that had the bruised smell of late winter sunlight.
But consequences linger in people like scars. I found myself looking over my shoulder.
"I don't feel triumph," I confessed to Paula one night. "I feel hollow."
"You're allowed to," she said. "You escaped. You were taken. They made him pay."
"Do you think he's better?" I asked.
"Who knows?" she shrugged. "But the world knows now."
18
He did not come back as the same man. He came back with a new silence, with a quieter attitude, as if the public had excised the part of him that had been most dangerous.
There were nights I woke up, fingertips throbbing with phantom chains, and wondered if I had done the right thing. I had refused him. I had called the police eventually. I had let the world watch him fall. He had been punished before he could be forgiven.
"Do you ever sleep?" I asked the ceiling once, because the house felt like a mouth.
"Sometimes," he wrote once, with trembling hands, in a letter that arrived after the press had moved on. "Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I remember that you said 'mom' one night in a careless way and I thought it meant everything."
I folded that letter and kept it in a drawer, one among many artifacts that the dead and the living leave behind.
19
Years passed. Time thins memory and thickens regret.
I went to my late husband's gravesite on a rainy afternoon and paused at a smaller, less tended stone nearby—his name and dates, a life punctuated by rumor and reconstruction. I left a folded napkin there, not an offering but an apology.
Sometimes I wonder: If Andres had told me earlier, if he had been honest, would any of this have happened? If I had walked away before I promised to guard a lonely boy, would he have been less hungry? If I had been braver, would he be alive?
I don't know. The past is a set of doors, and what is done sits on the other side like a pile of things that cannot be moved.
20
There are moments of odd tenderness still. Once, in a grocery store, I saw him from across the aisle. He had grey at his temples and a cautious way of looking at produce like it might criticize him. When he saw me, he nodded like a man who had rehearsed courtesy. I nodded back and turned away.
On the car ride home, I found myself thinking of small things—how he used to make a bad cake that tasted like effort, how he would stand in rain without an umbrella just to feel something. I thought about how memory is a dangerous ingredient.
He left a bruise, and he left a ring. I had it melted down into something smaller and less shiny; I never wore that new piece in public. I kept it in a drawer.
21
When you remap a life around a borrowed promise, sometimes the architecture crumbles.
I could have called him many names. I called him Cillian. Once, in a moment that felt like a lapse and like mercy, I said something that softened him. He wanted a name and I gave him one that belonged to me. That was the most dangerous thing I ever did.
In the end, the public punishment happened as a matter of social justice and spectacle. People felt satisfied. He was punished in front of many, his facade stripped, his private sickness made public. But punishment does not cure everything. Punishment leaves a silence where a person used to be.
"Do you regret it?" Paula asked once, leaning into me on a bench.
"I regret that a life became a headline," I said. "I regret that he hurt me. I regret that he hurt himself."
"And you?" she asked.
"I am alive," I said. "I will take that."
The End
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