“I’m not making anything up—and you know it,” Ethan said.
Rob ran his hands over his face. He looked like a man on the verge of collapse.
“Ethan, go now.”
“Dad, you need to listen to me—”
“I said go!”
The scream echoed throughout the house. Ethan took a step back, hurt. I squeezed my phone so hard I thought I would break it.
“All right,” Ethan said in a low voice. “I’m going. But when you want to know the truth, you know where to find me.”
He left the house. The door closed behind him. On the screen, we could still see Rob and Chelsea in the living room.
She approached him and placed her hands on his chest.
“Honey, you’re stressed. That kid is making you sick. We should—”
“I need to be alone,” Rob interrupted her, pulling away.
He walked up the stairs without saying anything else. Chelsea stayed there, looking at her cell phone with a smile that chilled my blood. She dialed a number.
“Gerald, it’s me. We have to speed things up. The brat is causing problems. Yes, I know. Give me one more week and everything will be ready. The old lady won’t know what hit her.”
She hung up, and at that moment I knew we didn’t have much time.
Ethan arrived at the car. He got into the back with me. His eyes were full of tears he refused to shed.
“I’m sorry, Grandma. I tried.”
“Don’t apologize,” I said, hugging him. “You did perfectly. We got what we needed.”
Linda started the car, and we drove away. On my phone, I reviewed the recordings. We had everything—the candlestick, Chelsea’s threats, her confession about selling my house, her call with Gerald.
But more importantly, I had something that broke my heart: the confirmation that my son was lost.
That night, after Ethan fell asleep, I went out onto the balcony of my apartment. The city glowed under the streetlights. It was cold. Or maybe it was just my heart that felt frozen.
I thought about Rob when he was a child. How he would run to me every time I came home from work. How he would hug me and say, “Mom, I missed you all day.” The nights I spent awake when he had a fever. The times I defended him when other kids made fun of him for not having a father.
