That made me pause.
“What do you mean, he didn’t know?” I asked.
“He thought you left,” she whispered. “I told him you didn’t want the baby. That you chose someone else. That you… that you didn’t love him.”
The world tilted.
For seventeen years, I had imagined him walking away. Choosing his mother. Believing her over me.
But this?
This was different.
“You lied,” I said, my voice dropping.
She nodded, tears falling freely. “I was afraid. Afraid he would choose you. Afraid I’d lose him. I thought I was protecting him, protecting our family name… all those stupid, cruel things that seemed so important back then.” She shook her head weakly. “I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.”
I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Wrong doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
