“Mom… why were you in a hospital three weeks ago?”
The woman looked at Henry.
“Ask your father.”
Henry stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
But she reached into her old backpack and pulled out a folded document.
“I was never dead, Evan.”
The boy stared at her.
“Then where were you?”
Her voice cracked.
“Locked inside a private psychiatric clinic outside Chicago.”
Evan looked at his father.
“No…”
Henry shook his head.
“She was sick. I was protecting you.”
“Protecting him?” she screamed. “You paid them to keep me there!”
People on the sidewalk began stopping.
Henry’s face tightened.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The woman unfolded the document.
At the bottom was Henry’s signature.
Evan read the first line aloud:
“Patient must have no contact with her son…”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Dad… you did this?”
Henry said nothing.
Then Evan’s mother revealed the real reason.
“Your father thought I discovered where your grandfather’s $12 million inheritance went.”
Henry suddenly lunged for the papers.
But another document fell onto the sidewalk.
Evan picked it up first.
It was a DNA report.
He looked at the name printed beside his own.
Then slowly looked up at Henry.
“Dad… why does this say you’re not my father?”
Henry froze.
Evan’s mother whispered:
“Because the man who really is your father… is the same man Henry told you died last year.”
And from behind them, a stranger’s voice suddenly said:
“Evan?”
His mother went completely pale.
