I can’t stand her. There, I said it. Out loud. To you, to myself, to the universe. I’ve kept it bottled up for months, but the truth is, I refuse to let my son’s new wife stay with my grandkids. I don’t trust her. Not for a second.
Everyone tells me I’m being unreasonable, that I’m jealous, that I need to let go. My son, especially. He looks at me with those pleading, hurt eyes, the same ones he had when he was five and I told him he couldn’t have another cookie. But this isn’t about cookies. This is about my blood, my legacy, my heart. And this woman… she’s a poison I can feel seeping into our lives.
She arrived like a whirlwind after his divorce. Too fast. Too eager. Too perfect. Always smiling, always offering help, her voice soft and melodious. She bakes cookies with the grandkids, reads them stories, even volunteers at their school. On paper, she’s an angel. An absolute saint. But my gut screams. It twists into knots every time she laughs, every time she touches my son’s arm, every time she reaches for my grandchildren. There’s something… off. Something deeply, fundamentally wrong.
Violet Affleck spotted out in Pacific Palisades, California on June 18, 2024. | Source: Getty Images
I’ve tried to pinpoint it. Is it her ambition? Does she just want his money, his status? No, she comes from a comfortable background herself. Is it her past? Perhaps a hidden secret, a dark history she’s concealing? I’ve looked, subtly, of course. Everything seems impeccable. No skeletons. Yet, the feeling persists. It’s like a phantom limb ache, a deep, resonant warning bell that no one else can hear.
My son thinks I’m just grieving his first marriage, that I haven’t accepted his new reality. He says I’m projecting. Maybe he’s right, a tiny part of me whispers, a treacherous thought that I quickly silence. But how can I project when this feeling is so specific, so piercing? It’s not just general dislike. It’s a primal, visceral revulsion, a maternal instinct screaming danger.
I’ve lived with a secret my entire adult life. A deep, buried shame from my youth. A mistake I made, a choice I was forced to make, that has haunted every waking moment, every quiet dream. I had to give up my first child, a daughter, when I was barely out of my teens. It was a closed adoption, no details, no way to ever trace her. The guilt, the grief, the what-ifs – they became a part of my DNA. They made me fiercely protective of my son, my only other child, ensuring he would never suffer, never face the same pain I caused. I built a fortress around him, around my family. And now, she’s here, chipping away at the foundation.
I remember the first time I saw her across the restaurant, my son beaming as he introduced her. Her eyes met mine, and for a split second, a chill ran down my spine. Those eyes. They were so familiar. Not like anyone I knew, but like a reflection, a ghost. Her smile, though sweet, had a particular curve, a dimple that seemed to echo in a forgotten corner of my mind. I shook it off then. Just nerves, I told myself. Just a mother’s apprehension.
But the feeling grew. Every family dinner, every holiday gathering, every time she was near the children, my heart would pound. I couldn’t articulate why I felt such dread. I just knew. I couldn’t allow her to be alone with them. So I insisted on being there, always. If she offered to babysit, I’d magically find an excuse to join or have them stay at my house. If she wanted to pick them up from school, I’d already be there. My son started getting frustrated.
Violet Affleck spotted on May 11, 2024, in Los Angeles, California | Source: Getty Images
“Mother, why can’t you just trust her?” he’d pleaded last week, his voice raw with exasperation. “She’s good for me. She’s good for them. You’re pushing her away, and you’re pushing me away!”
My breath hitched. “I JUST CAN’T, SON,” I’d choked out, the words tasting like ash. “I just know she isn’t right.” I couldn’t explain why. How could I? There was no logical explanation, just this overwhelming, crushing weight of foreboding.
Then, last night. She was sharing stories about her childhood with my grandkids. They were giggling, enraptured. She mentioned how she never knew her biological parents, that she was adopted. My world tilted. I felt the blood drain from my face. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, desperate bird trying to escape. Adopted. The word echoed, loud and clear, shattering the carefully constructed walls of my consciousness.
She pulled out an old, faded photograph from her wallet, showing a tiny baby in a yellow blanket. “This was me,” she said, her eyes shining with a familiar vulnerability. “My adoptive parents always told me I was their greatest gift.” The picture, though grainy, showed a small, distinctive birthmark on the baby’s left temple. A tiny, almost imperceptible freckle-like mark.
I froze. I knew that mark. I KNEW IT. I’d kissed it a thousand times in my dreams, tracing its outline with a ghostly finger. It was on the baby I held for a precious, agonizing few hours before I said goodbye. The baby I named, silently, in my heart, before signing away my rights.
My vision blurred. The room spun. The children’s laughter sounded distant, hollow. It can’t be. It can’t be. NO. NO, THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE.
But the pieces, the subtle familiarity, the inexplicable dread, the eyes, the smile, the adopted status, the birthmark… they all slammed together with a force that knocked the air from my lungs.
Jennifer Garner with Violet Affleck at the White House in Washington, D.C., on December 1, 2022 | Source: Getty Images
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. It wasn’t that I thought she was a bad person. It was that my subconscious, my soul, recognized her. My terror wasn’t about her hurting my grandchildren. It was about something infinitely, unspeakably worse. My son, my beautiful boy, is married to his half-sister.
SHE IS MY DAUGHTER.
