To quote Gator, "Oh boy."
Sandra had such a hard life. Ronnie sounds like a piece of work, she was probably relieved when he walked out the door. Unfortunately this also left her with 2 special needs children to raise. One she could put in care, even though this cost her a fortune, but the other one had to live with her and be sent to Catholic school (costing more money). I'm sure Ronnie never paid a single cent in alimony or child support, like father like son. She struggles on, cleaning up after Ethan, working hard, spending her free time buying the stuff he demands, making his many meals, repairing the holes in the wall of the crack shack he makes in his piggy rages to the best of her ability. It is a relief when he makes friends with a nice Jewish boy in school and that kid invites him over, only to be dismayed when that boy's mother brings Ethan back and yells at her because Ethan murdered the family dog and made up a poorly constructed lie about how the dog hung itself. She immediately thinks of the time with the puppies, how he had lied and said they needed to be kept warm. He gets worse from this point, still pissing and shitting himself until he is a teen, starting to steal her drink, cigarettes and pills at age 12, taking her car for rides with it coming back with parts missing. When Ethan gets in trouble with the law, they depend on relations in law enforcement, having them risk their job for their deadbeat nephew. She begs Ethan to stay within city limits so he won't get in trouble - but she knows there is no point in asking him to stop.
She is relieved when he finishes his high school by mail and goes off to college, only to have him fail out and move back in with her. Now a "grown" man, he refuses to shower, he refuses to wear underwear, and slowly he takes over more of the house, forcing her to retreat to what he mockingly calls her "wing", but is really just her bedroom. He is up all night online, yelling to the Internet about how he didn't murder that woman behind Arby's (she prays that, for once, he is telling the truth). One night, he takes her car keys and drunkenly drives off. Next thing she knows, she gets a call - he went outside city limits, where the family member in law enforcement couldn't protect him. He tried to swing at a female cop and, although he missed, he is now going to jail.
It is a blissful year before he moves back in, this time bringing an "English" girl as his wife. She hopes maybe they will move in together, but that never happens. The wife only appears twice a year, meaning she doesn't even take over looking after Ethan domestically. Sandra struggles on, but now her health is failing. She needs dialysis. She can no longer work. Instead of helping Sandra, he leaves her to fend for herself, helping himself to the medicine she needs to relieve the pain. The one time she asks him to drive her to an appointment, in her car, he yelled at her about the weather and told her to eat an d-uber. She notices the family cat has been missing for a while, but she is too afraid to ask where it is - for fear of his reaction and fear in case he tells the truth.
Her ex-husband dies, but his son has become a worse version of him anyway, one she can't escape from. Noticing one night that he is sharing child pornography with a Canadian man over the Internet, she watches the news for missing children just in case he escalates and has taken one to his half of the property he inherited. It is worse, he brings a child bride to Sandra's home. Sandra can only guess the old wife left him at some point, why would he tell her anything unless he wanted something? The child bride causes as many problems as he does, but at least some of his rage is directed towards the new girl now. Soon, the girl is pregnant and a horse tranny has also moved in - Sandra has even less space than before and even more work to be done to look after 2 adults and a pregnant teen bride. Despite her being so tired, so sick. They leave her with no medication to numb the pain. One night she is awoken by screaming as Ethan chokes his child bride. Sandra musters all her energy and helps the pregnant girl escape while Ethan and the tranny are passed out on Sandra's pills and cheap booze. She wishes she could go with the girl. She knows she may never get to see her grandchild, but at least they will be safe.
Soon, her health gets worse. As she lies in hospital, she finds herself wishing to see her son one last time. He may be a monster, but he is all she has. But he never comes.
Anyway, Ethan did dun murder that dog.
