…because she admitted to me that she was the one who ‘accidentally’ fed him that peanut butter cookie last month. The one that put him in the ER.”
The blood drained from my face. My grip on the phone tightened so hard my knuckles turned white.
“Wait,” I breathed, my voice trembling. “Are you serious? The ER trip? She did that?!”
“Yes,” my mom replied, her tone fiercely unapologetic. “She let it slip yesterday. She actually had the nerve to say he ‘survived just fine’ and that you two coddle him too much. So, I looked her dead in the eye and told her if she ever stepped foot near my grandson again, I’d call the police and report her for child endangerment. I told her she lost her grandmother privileges the second she used a baby as a lab rat. That’s why she’s crying.”
I hung up the phone. My heart was pounding against my ribs, a sickening mix of rage and terror washing over me.
My husband, Mark, was standing in the doorway of the living room, his arms crossed, still waiting for an explanation. His face was flushed with anger. “Well?” he demanded. “What kind of cruel thing did your mother say? Are you going to call and apologize for her?”
I slowly turned to face him, my voice dropping to a dead, icy calm. “No. But you are going to call yours. Right now. Put her on speaker.”
Mark blinked, taken aback by my tone. “What? Why?”
“Because,” I said, stepping closer to him, “my mother just solved the mystery of why Leo went into anaphylactic shock last month.”
Mark went entirely still. The anger in his eyes vanished, replaced instantly by confusion, and then, slowly, a dawning horror. “No,” he whispered. “No, she wouldn’t…”
“Call her, Mark.”
With shaking hands, he pulled out his phone, dialed his mother’s number, and tapped the speaker button. She answered on the second ring, her voice thick with exaggerated sobs.
“Mark, honey? Did you talk to her? Did you hear how awful her mother was to me—”
“Mom,” Mark interrupted, his voice cracking. “Did you give Leo a peanut butter cookie last month?”
The line went dead silent. The dramatic crying stopped instantly.
“Mom. Answer me,” Mark demanded, his voice rising in volume.
“I… I just wanted to build his immunity, Mark!” she suddenly blurted out, defensive and panicked. “You kids read all these paranoid parenting blogs! In my day, we just gave kids a little bit of everything. I only gave him a tiny bite, and yes, he had a little reaction, but the hospital fixed him right up! Your mother-in-law had no right to speak to me that way—”
Mark didn’t let her finish. He ended the call.
He stared down at his phone for a long time, the betrayal heavy in the air between us. The woman who had been weeping all day over “disrespect” had nearly killed our son to prove a point.
Mark finally looked up at me, tears brimming in his eyes. He reached out and pulled me into a tight hug.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into my hair. “Your mom was right. She’s not coming near him again.”
I hugged him back, looking over his shoulder toward the nursery where our son was sleeping safely. “I know,” I said softly. “I know.”
