“$5,000,”
Nathan repeated.
“That’s all she gave you.”
“That’s all I was worth to her,”
Evelyn said bitterly.
“$5,000 to disappear forever. To let her son think I was dead. To raise his child alone and never tell him the truth.”
Nathan sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs. His whole body felt weak.
“I didn’t know what to do,”
Evelyn continued.
“I was scared, traumatized. I walked for hours that night, just walked through the rain, not knowing where to go. Finally, I found a small motel. I paid for a room with some of that money, and I just stayed there for days, maybe weeks. I lost track of time.”
“I was so depressed,”
she said quietly.
“So scared, so alone. I thought about going to the police, but what would I tell them? That my mother-in-law faked my death? Would they believe me, or would they think I was crazy, just like she always said I was?”
“You should have come to me,”
Nathan said, his voice cracking.
“You should have found a way to tell me.”
“She said she’d kill me!”
Evelyn shouted suddenly.
“She said she’d kill our baby! And I believed her, Nathan. I believed her because she was powerful and rich and connected and I was nobody. What was I supposed to do?”
Nathan had no answer. Evelyn took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
“I finally left that motel and went to another city,”
she said.
“A city far away where no one knew me. I used a different name, my middle name, Marie. I found a cheap apartment. I got a job at a diner working for cash so I wouldn’t need to show ID.”
“And you had the baby,”
Nathan said gently. Evelyn’s face softened just a little bit.
“Yes. I had Lucas all alone in a hospital where no one knew my real name. No family, no friends, no husband holding my hand. Just me.”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“But when they put him in my arms,”
she whispered.
“When I looked at his little face and saw your eyes looking back at me, I knew I’d made the right choice. Because he was alive. See? And that was all that mattered.”
“I worked hard,”
Evelyn continued.
“I saved every penny. After a few years, I had enough money to move back here to this city, to your old house. I knew it was empty, abandoned. I figured I figured you’d forgotten about it. That you’d moved on with your life. So, I broke in,”
She admitted.
“I changed the locks. I made it a home for Lucas. It wasn’t legal, I know, but I had nowhere else to go. And I thought, I thought you’d never come back.”
She looked at Nathan with exhausted eyes.
“I’ve been living here for 7 years,”
she said.
“Working two jobs, one at a grocery store, one cleaning offices at night. Barely doing enough to feed us and keep the lights on. Praying every single day that your mother would never find out we were here, that you would never come back.”
“But you did come back,”
she said.
“And now everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve built to keep Lucas safe, it’s all falling apart.”
Nathan stood up. His legs felt shaky, but he managed to stay standing.
“My mother,”
he said. His voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone else.
“My mother did this. She lied to me. She made me think you were dead. She stole 8 years from us. She kept me from knowing my son.”
“Yes,”
Evelyn said it simply.
“Does she know?”
Nathan asked.
“Does she know you’re alive? That Lucas exists?”
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