“This is Richard,” she said, gesturing to the man beside her. “My lawyer. May we come in?”
I stepped aside, holding the door open for them before closing it quietly, like if I let it slam shut, this bubble would burst.
She moved through the apartment slowly, like it might vanish if she blinked. She took in the boxes, the clutter, the lived-in mess of a place I was still trying to claim as a home. Winston peeked out from behind the couch and promptly disappeared again. Smart cat.
“It suits you,” she said softly, half to herself.
I busied myself making coffee. Not out of politeness, more that I needed something to do with my hands. I passed a cup to each of them, then sat across from her, shoulders braced for impact.
“Why are you here?” I asked. No softness. Just the blunt edge of exhaustion.
She didn’t flinch. “Because I need you to know the truth,” she said. “And because you walked away before I could tell you.”
My stomach tightened. “What truth?”
She looked at Richard. He gave the smallest nod, the kind you give someone who’s standing on the edge of a cliff.
“I married Washington because it made sense,” she began. “Because my name had weight. Because my family’s legacy came with connections. And money. That was all he ever wanted—an alliance, money and power. Not a wife. Certainly not love.”
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure I trusted my voice not to crack.
“When I got pregnant with you, he changed. Revealed his true colors if you will. He drew up contracts. Postnups full of clauses. He buried me under legal paperwork so complicated I couldn’t sneeze without his permission. I was trapped, Theo. Just like you.”
I gripped my mug so tightly I thought it might crack. “Then why didn’t you stop him?” I asked, my voice low. “Why did you let him send me away?”
Tears welled in her eyes, but didn’t fall. She pulled a small stack of papers from her bag and laid them gently on the coffee table between us.
“Because I didn’t know,” she said.
I laughed. Bitter. Cold. “You didn’t know where your own son was? That’s the story you’re going with?”
“He told me you were at a mentorship program abroad. Sent me fake letters on fancy stationery. Emails from burner addresses. Photos that were doctored. Every time I tried to visit, there was an excuse. You were in exams. Sick. Traveling. Every door I knocked on, he’d already locked.”
She slid one of the letters toward me. It was in my handwriting. But it wasn’t mine. I scanned the words. Neat. Hollow. Polished. Too perfect. Too composed to have belonged to an emotionally ravaged teenager.
“He forged my letters,” I whispered. Horror bloomed like bruises under my ribs. “He forgedme.”
“I didn’t know until recently,” she said. “I started digging into the financials—documents and accounts he kept hidden for decades. And once I started pulling the threads—with Richard’s help—the whole story unraveled.”
I sat back, chest heaving. Every part of me felt frayed at the edges, like I’d been stitched together wrong.
“Why now?” I asked.
She swallowed. “Because I don’t want to be another person who lets you down.”
And just like that—something inside me shattered and reformed.
There was no apology big enough to patch the years. No perfect sentence that would rebuild what we never had. But at that moment, in that quiet, I saw something in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
Want.
Grief.
Maybe even love, still trying to figure out how to breathe.
I looked down at the forged letter. Then back at her. “I don’t know if I can forgive you,” I said. “Not yet.”
“I don’t expect you to,” she replied, and her voice didn’t shake. “But I’m here. If you want me to be.”
