Chapter 3: The Mother Who Was Still Waiting
I lifted the lid and found a small phone resting where a birthday gift should have been.
Anna pressed it into my hand.
“Answer it.”
Dad lunged toward me.
“Give me that phone.”
I stepped off the porch and accepted the call.
“Hello?”
For a moment, there was only breathing.
Then a woman whispered, “George?”
My chest tightened.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Helen.” Her voice cracked.
“I’m your mother.”
Dad knocked the phone from my hand, but Anna caught it before it reached the ground.
“That is enough,” he said.
“You’ve both had your little performance.”
The phone was still on speaker.
“Robert,” Helen said, “don’t take him from me again.”
Dad stared at the phone.
“You lost the right to call yourself his mother.”
“Dad, you told me she was gone.”
“She was gone.” He pointed at Anna.
“They’re twisting words to confuse you.”
Helen drew a shaky breath.
“You had a blue rabbit called Benny.
One ear came loose when you were four.
I stitched it back on with green thread because it was all I had.”
I looked through the open door.
Benny was still in a box beneath my childhood bed.
“How do you know that?”
“I held you while you slept,” she said.
“I sang ‘You Are My Sunshine’ when storms frightened you.”
Dad reached for the phone again.
I pulled it against my chest.
“Why don’t I remember you?”
“Because Robert made sure you wouldn’t.”
“That’s a lie,” Dad snapped.
“A judge kept her away because she wasn’t fit to raise you.”
Helen’s voice sharpened.
“There was no hearing.”
“I have the order.”
“You have a document carrying a signature I never wrote.”
Dad turned to me.
“Listen to yourself, George.
You’re trusting a stranger and a woman accused of st3aling over the man who raised you.”
Anna stepped forward.
“You put the money in my coat yourself.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“I couldn’t then.”
Dad’s mouth twitched.
“And you can now?”
Anna held his stare.
“That’s why I came back.”
He lowered his voice.
“Be careful.
That old report still exists.”
“You promised the police you wouldn’t pursue it if I left town.”
“I promised nothing.”
“You threatened my family.”
Dad smiled without warmth.
“More stories.”
“Stop!” I shouted.
“Both of you.”
They fell silent.
I raised the phone.
“Helen, why did you wait twelve years?”
“I didn’t.
I wrote every month until Robert’s lawyer sent them back.
I came to your school twice.
The second time, Robert had me removed.”
Dad folded his arms.
“She caused a scene.”
“I stood across the street,” Helen said.
“You told security I was dangerous.”
“Were you?” I asked.
The silence that followed hurt more than an answer.
“I was ill after you were born,” Helen finally said.
“I needed help.
Robert used that illness to frighten me and take control.
But I got better, George.
He never told you that part.”
Dad moved closer.
“Ask her why she signed away custody.”
“I signed a temporary care agreement,” Helen replied.
“He replaced the final page.”
Anna touched my shoulder.
“Your mother and I planned to show you the original on your thirteenth birthday.”
Dad pointed toward the street.
“Leave my property before I call the police.”
I looked at him.
“It’s my birthday.”
“And I gave you a home for twenty-five years.”
“You also gave me a grave to mourn that never existed.”
His face hardened.
“If you walk away with them, don’t come back.”
Anna opened her purse and removed a folded bank statement.
“There’s one more thing, George.”
“What?”
She pointed to a withdrawal dated on my thirteenth birthday.
Dad’s name stood beside the amount: $184,000.
May you like
“That was your maternal grandparents’ trust,” Anna said.
“Your mother wasn’t the only thing he took from you.”
