After my wife d!ed, I rejected her son because he wasn’t mine

I stood motionless.
I didn’t need to read the title on the plaque: “The day I stopped being a son.”

“I knew you’d come.” The voice chilled me to the bone.

I turned around.
And there he was.
Not the boy I remembered, but a man.

Delgado, with his mother’s eyes, but with a calmness I didn’t recognize.
His gaze held no hatred, no anger. Only a serenity that hurt more than any scream.

“Ethan…” I whispered.

He nodded, with a slight smile.
“Hello, Mr. Kapoor.”

That “gentleman” pierced me. He wasn’t Dad anymore . He never had been, really.

“I thought you were dead,” I said without thinking.

“I was,” he replied, shrugging. “In many ways. But I suppose small deaths also teach you how to live.”

I didn’t know what to say.