My MIL Mocked Me for Making My Own Wedding Cake, Then Took Credit for It in Her Speech, Story Of The Day

Jack never took sick days—not for fevers, not for food poisoning, not even after his own mother passed. So when he sat slumped over our tiny kitchen table on a Tuesday morning, pale and wheezing, and told me he wasn’t going to work, I knew something was off. I paused, halfway through scraping burnt toast into the trash.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I feel awful,” he croaked.

“You look worse,” I said, handing him Tylenol. “Go back to bed. I’ve got the kids.”

He nodded and shuffled off while I launched into our usual morning chaos—packing lunches, shouting reminders, negotiating with a daughter begging for a pet snake, calming our son over his science project, and reminding our teen that texting during breakfast didn’t qualify as social interaction. But all of it came to a screeching halt when I opened the front door.

There, standing on our porch, was Jack.

Or at least… a life-sized statue of Jack.

Porcelain white, eerily lifelike, from the scar on his chin to the crooked shape of his nose. It was him. Frozen. Cold.

“Is that… Dad?” Ellie whispered.

Behind us, the real Jack appeared in his bathrobe, and when he saw the statue, his face drained completely. Wordless, he pushed past us, grabbed the figure under the arms, and dragged it into the house like it was a body.

“What is going on?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer.

“Who made that? Why is it here?”

“I’ll take care of it,” he muttered. “Please… just take the kids.”

“No. Not this time. I want answers, Jack.”

“Later,” he said, haunted. “Please.”

I hesitated, studying the unfamiliar look in his eyes—guilt, fear, something I’d never seen before. I nodded. “Fine. But I want the truth when I get back.”

As we left, Noah tugged on my coat and handed me a folded, crumpled piece of paper. “This was under the statue.”