How Does M Is For Mama Rebel Against Mediocre Motherhood?

He wasn’t supposed to notice her. She wasn’t supposed to want him. And her daughter definitely wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him first. “He’s not just dangerous,” she whispers to herself . “He’s the kind of man who ruins your life slowly… and makes you thank him for it.” He rides loud. He loves hard. And once he wants something, he doesn’t let go. “You don’t get to look at me like that,” she tells him. His smile is slow. Predatory. Certain. “I already did,” he says. “And now you’re mine.” She’s a single mother barely holding it together. He’s a biker king with blood on his hands and loyalty carved into his bones. Their worlds should never touch. But they collide anyway. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing to me?” he growls. Her back hits the wall. His body cages her in. “You think I’d touch you if I didn’t plan to keep you?” This isn’t a sweet romance. It’s raw. Possessive. Unforgiving. The kind of love that marks you. “Mummy,” her daughter says softly, holding his hand. “Can he stay forever?” He shouldn’t want them. But the idea of leaving them hurts worse than any knife. “I don’t share,” he tells her in the dark. “Not my bike. Not my club. And definitely not my woman.” One kiss turns into hunger. One night turns into obsession. And one choice could burn everything down. “If you climb on my bike,” he warns, voice low and lethal, “you don’t get off unchanged.”

The seventh time Dante Moretti served me divorce papers, I was sitting with my son in a cheap diner on Chicago's South Side. I forced a smile and brushed my hand over my son's hair. "Just wait a little longer, sweetheart. This time, Mommy will get custody of you." He stayed quiet for a long moment. Then he looked up and asked, “Mommy, how much do you need to sell me for before you're happy?” Before I could answer, he pulled a handwritten divorce agreement from his backpack and pushed it toward me. "I know you keep fighting Dad for me because you want more money from him." "I wrote the agreement for him. Please sign it. Dad is already tired. Stop making his life so hard." His handwriting was crooked, but every word had been written with care. Dante would give me three million dollars. At the bottom, in my son's childish scrawl, was one more line. [After you take the money, don't bother me, Dad, and Serena anymore. Let us be happy.] Serena was Dante's childhood sweetheart. The woman he trusted more than his own wife. For five years, I had stood against Dante's family, his lawyers, and half the Chicago underworld just to keep custody of my son. For him, I would've walked away with nothing. But the child I had raised for eight years had already chosen another mother. So why shouldn't I give their perfect little family exactly what they wanted?

When Mom punishes me, her palms are sweaty. I know she's even more nervous than I am. She's scared that others will accuse her of favoring me. When the rest of my classmates perform poorly in class, all she does is tell them to review the lesson and do a few more exercises. But when I'm the one who does badly, she points at the field outside the window. Despite the burning midday heat of June, she commands, "Julia Swanson! You're going to stand out on the field and memorize all the words you messed up. You're not allowed to come back in until you know everything by heart!" Everyone in the classroom looks at me. One of my classmates mutters, "Ms. Campbell is being way too hard on her own daughter." Mom hears that comment, and her eyes flash with satisfaction. That's precisely what she wants everyone to see. No one will dare say she's biased toward me if she punishes me the most harshly out of all the students. "Why are you still here?" she barks at me. "Get out. You think you can get into a top college with grades like yours?" The classmate sitting next to me tugs on my sleeve and whispers, "Why don't you try asking her to go easier on you? It's blazing hot outside." I shake my head. The most futile thing I can ever do is ask Mom to go easier on me in school. She prides herself on her professionalism as a teacher. It's a matter of principle to her. But she has forgotten that it's over 104 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Not wanting to disappoint her, I stand out in the sun. The blazing hot air dries up my sweat—and my tears. Eventually, my vision goes blurry. The world seems to spin around me… As I collapse onto the ground, I hear Mom tell her colleague, "I'll just get a popsicle as a gesture and bring that stubborn daughter of mine back inside later." She has no idea that I won't be able to accept her olive branch anymore.

The day I signed the divorce papers, I voluntarily gave up custody of my daughter. Because that day, in the courtroom, she clung to her father’s neck, sobbing with all the fury a six-year-old could muster: “You don’t even love me… do you? If you leave Daddy, I’ll stay with him… and you’ll be all alone forever!” In my past life, I had ignored her childish threats. I fought tooth and nail for her custody. I poured every ounce of myself into raising her. And yet… she spent her entire life hating me. Not once did she ever call me “Mom” until the day I died. On her wedding day, she even invited her father’s mistress to the stage to give a speech of thanks. Now, opening my eyes again, seeing that same cruel little face staring back at me, I simply nodded. “I don’t care.” After all… I never wanted a daughter like her anyway.

My mom is terrified of being laughed at by others the most. Whenever the holidays are here, she will keep repeating one sentence to me—"Don't go around embarrassing me." When my relatives gather around and chat with each other, I accidentally knock a fruit platter over. Mom drags me over and slaps me on the spot. At the holiday feast, I grab extra pieces of steak for myself. Mom responds by kicking my chair over. When it's time for the holiday gifts to be distributed, my aunt, Gabriella Hall, has miscalculated the number of children present among the family. So, she has prepared one less gift for the occasion. Mom doesn't hesitate to kick me out of the apartment, leaving me shivering in the cold corridor in just my indoor clothes. The icy winds chill me to the bone. I keep slamming my palms on the front door while screaming and crying my apologies at Mom, and yet she remains unmoved and silent. Instead, she turns to face Aunt Gabriella with an apologetic smile on her face. "I'm really sorry. I didn't raise my daughter well. It's only fair that you ridicule me." What Mom doesn't know is that I get triggered whenever I hear the word "ridicule" thanks to her so-called parenting lessons. Whenever I hear that word, I want nothing more than to hurt myself uncontrollably. So when I hear the word "ridicule" coming out of Mom's mouth through the front door, I turn on my heel quietly and begin making my way toward the bridge next to the neighborhood that's plunged into darkness. The moment I jump from the bridge, the only thought I have is, "Mom, no one will ridicule you because of me this time."

I was prepping the ceremonial cloak for our seventh mating anniversary. The front door suddenly banged open. My son rushed inside, tears streaming down his face. "The teacher yelled at me," he sobbed. He shoved the wrinkled drawing into my hands before burying his face in my shirt. I smoothed out the paper to see what the drama was about. It was a sketch of a faceless woman titled: The Substitute Mom. My heart stopped as I read the scribbles underneath. "Daddy said she is the backup." "She does the chores but gets no wages." "The Real Mom is responsible for being beautiful and guarding the treasury." My fingertips turned ice-cold against the paper. My mate, Ethan, had just returned from a patrol. He kissed my forehead. "What did our pup draw?" The next second, his smile froze when he saw the content. His voice tightened, and he reached out to snatch the book. "He watches too many cartoons! He's writing nonsense!" I stared at the man I had shared a den with for seven years. He looked like a stranger now. If I was the substitute. Who was this beautiful real mother? And where had my true son been all these years?