My Deadbeat Daughter Crushed It

George Dunne and I had been married for twenty-eight years. We had only one daughter, Zoe Dunne.

She had graduated from the prestigious Summit University. She had once been my greatest source of pride. Somehow, she had turned into a complete deadbeat.

Every morning, long after the sun was up, she would lie there with her eyes closed and call out, “Mom, where’s my phone?”

It was always right under her pillow.

I would pull it out and put it in her hand. Only then would she finally crawl out from under the covers.

If she wanted an orange, she would peel it for all of a few seconds before giving up.

“Mom, peel it for me.”

Whenever I told her to start sending out resumes, she would grab her phone and furiously tap away at the screen right in front of me.

“Done, Mom. I applied.”

The first time I leaned over to see what she had actually done, I was speechless.

She had been applying to random jobs on JobNest.

On one end of the spectrum were executive positions at major corporations offering seven-figure salaries.

On the other were street-cleaning jobs that barely paid enough to live on.

The worst part was that she operated on a strict apply-and-ignore policy.

It was not that recruiters were ignoring her. She was the one ignoring every message they sent.

The first time I saw her do that, I nearly blacked out on the spot.

After more than twenty years of raising her, I could not help wondering where on earth I had gone wrong.

At this rate, my daughter was well on her way to becoming a completely helpless freeloader who could barely fend for herself. It seemed like she planned to live off her parents forever.

However, useless as Zoe could be, she was also the only person in that house who genuinely cared about me.

Whenever I got home late after spending the day helping George's mother, Ruth Dunne, Zoe would be curled up on the couch waiting for me.

There would always be a bowl of my favorite chicken soup on the table, ordered for delivery just in time for me to get home.

Whenever George raised his voice at me, Zoe would be the first one out of bed, ready to give it right back to him.

“What gives you the right to talk to Mom like that?”

Over the years, George had grown colder toward me. He started coming home later and later.

Most days, it felt like Zoe and I were all each other had.

Whenever I quietly started crying, she would stumble over, half-asleep, and wipe my tears away.

Once, she ended up with snot all over her hand.

She made a disgusted face but kept wiping anyway.

Whenever I got sick, she worried about me even more than I worried about myself.

“Mom, want an ice cream bar? It’ll cheer you up, and then you’ll get better faster.”

I looked at the ice cream in her hand and smiled with resignation.

Her face immediately lit up.

“See, Mom? I told you! Ice cream makes people happy! You’re practically cured already!”

“I’ve got a cold, sweetheart. I think I’ll pass on the ice cream. I appreciate the gesture, though.”

For once, her expression turned unusually serious.

“Mom, do you think I’m completely useless? Do you ever regret having me?”

My nose stung. My eyes began to burn.

“Not for a second.”

Her face softened, as though an enormous weight had just been lifted off her shoulders.

“Thanks, Mom. Although, to be fair, I’m pretty useless right now.”

I nearly choked on the pill I was swallowing.

One afternoon, I got a text from a number I did not recognize.

The sender asked if I could meet her at the cafe near the entrance to our neighborhood.

At the bottom of the message was a name.

[Michelle Tyler.]

I knew who she was.

She had worked with George for years.

She was also the woman people at his workplace had called his “close friend” for over twenty years.

Ruth mentioned her on the phone more often than she mentioned me and Zoe combined.

However, George always brushed it off. “We work in the same office. Stop reading into it.”

I believed him.

Michelle and I had barely crossed paths in all those years.

So, when she suddenly asked to meet, every instinct I had told me this was not going to be a friendly chat.

Feeling uneasy, I sent my best friend, Kaley Mayhew, more than a dozen texts.

She was away on a business trip that day. She must have been swamped because she did not reply to any of my texts.

I glanced at Zoe’s closed bedroom door.

She was probably still asleep.

There was no point in telling Zoe and making her worry.

After all, she did nothing but eat and sleep all day. If something really was wrong, there would be little she could do about it.

If there really was something going on between Michelle and George, Zoe would probably have even less idea what to do than I did.

By the time I got to the cafe, Michelle was already waiting for me.

She was even more attractive in person than she was in photos, with her hair styled in loose, glossy waves.

When I sat down, I was still in a daze. She got straight to the point.

“Olivia, I asked you here because I want you to divorce George. It’s been years, and the kids are grown now. It’s time you stepped aside and let me have him.”

It felt as though all the blood in my body had turned to ice.

My nails dug painfully into my palms.

For a long moment, I could not utter a word.