My son called me: “Mom, I’m getting married tomorrow. I have withdrawn all your money and sold your apartment”.

My son called me: “Mom, I’m getting married tomorrow. I have withdrawn all your money and sold your apartment”.

My son called me on a Wednesday afternoon with the most excited voice I had heard from him in years.

—Mom, I have incredible news. Tomorrow I’m marrying Vanessa. We are not going to wait any longer. We are going to have a surprise party at the Mirador del Pacífico Club.

I was barely opening my mouth to congratulate him when he interrupted me with almost childish joy.

—Oh, and one more thing… I already transferred all the money from your accounts to mine. I’m going to need it to pay for the wedding and honeymoon in Paris. And about your apartment facing the sea… the one you like so much… I already sold it. I signed this morning using the power you gave me last year. The money is already in my account and the new owners want you to leave in thirty days. Well, mom… see you. Or maybe not.

And hung.

I stood motionless in the middle of the room, looking at the ocean from the windows of my apartment in Puerto Vallarta. The silence was total. Any mother would have screamed. I would have cried. I would have begged. I, on the other hand, started laughing.

I laughed so much that I had to sit down so I wouldn’t fall.

Because my son, my brilliant lawyer son, had just made the worst mistake of his life.

So you understand why I laughed at my own son’s misfortune, I have to back off a little.

My name is Teresa Villaseñor, I am sixty-four years old, and every weight I have cost me years of fatigue, sleeplessness and sacrifices. My late husband, Ernesto, and I started a small bakery in a town in Jalisco. We worked from Monday to Monday, without vacations, without rest, with our hands full of flour and our bodies exhausted. That bakery became two, then a chain of convenience stores. When Ernesto died twelve years ago, I sold the operation, invested everything in real estate, funds and stocks, and decided to live calmly.

I wanted to travel. I wanted to rest. I wanted to ensure the future for my only son: Diego.

Diego was always intelligent, charming, handsome. But he had a serious flaw: he liked the easy way. He studied Law, yes, but he never could stand to really work. His thing was not to litigate, but to pretend. I wanted the expensive suits, the fancy watches, the photos in fancy restaurants, the imported cars. I helped him too much. I paid him the rent for the office. I changed his car several times. I covered credit cards “busted by accident”. I thought I was supporting him. In reality, she was raising a man incapable of living without someone solving his life.

And everything got worse the day Vanessa Alcázar appeared.

Vanessa was one of those influencers who smiles with her mouth and calculates with her eyes. Beautiful, impeccable, always perfumed, always recording, always talking about travel, brands and exclusivity. The first time he came to my house for dinner, he didn’t look at me: he looked at my paintings, my dishes, my crystal chandelier, my rings.

—What a spectacular apartment, Mrs. Teresa —he said, walking around the dining room with his eyes—. It must be worth a fortune. Have you never thought about selling it and moving to something more age-appropriate?

I smiled and said no.

But Diego’s idea stuck.

From then on the pressure began.

—Mom, let me help you manage your accounts.
—Mom, sign this power of attorney so that I can resolve your procedures and not wait in lines.
—Mom, you should simplify your assets.

I always pretended not to understand. Until, six months before that call, I got severe pneumonia and ended up hospitalized for ten days. She was weak, medicated, with a high fever. Diego went to see me every day, very attentive, very affectionate. On one of those visits he handed me some papers.