CHAPTER 3: THE SECRET ABOUT NOAH’S MOTHER
Marcus placed the document on the table.
“What is this?”
Lorena looked away.
“Answer me.”
Her hands began shaking.
“It’s nothing.”
“No.”
Marcus slammed his hand against the table.
“It’s everything.”
The children jumped.
Noah flinched.
Marcus lifted the hospital record.
“According to this document, Noah’s mother didn't die.”
The room gasped.
Lorena closed her eyes.
“She’s alive.”
Noah’s fork slipped from his hand.
“What?”
Marcus turned toward the little boy.
His own eyes were wet now.
“For nine years, I believed your mother was gone.”
Noah stared at him.
“You told me she died.”
Marcus slowly looked at Lorena.
“That's what she told both of us.”
The room became impossibly quiet.
Then Lorena finally broke.
“She was going to leave!”
Tears streamed down her face.
“She was taking you with her!”
Marcus stared at her in disbelief.
“So you lied?”
Lorena covered her mouth.
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“You stole a child’s mother.”
The truth crashed through the room.
Every lie.
Every manipulation.
Every cruel word spoken to Noah over the years.
All of it suddenly made sense.
Lorena never hated Noah because he wasn't family.
She hated him because he was proof of the truth she had buried.
Marcus slowly moved beside Noah.
Then he wrapped an arm around the boy.
“You’re not a stranger.”
Noah began crying.
The kind of crying that comes after years of loneliness.
“You are my son.”
Police sirens echoed faintly outside.
Someone had already called authorities.
Lorena sank into a chair as her perfect life collapsed around her.
And for the first time in nearly ten years...
Noah finally learned the truth.
His mother hadn't abandoned him.
Someone had simply stolen her away.
And somewhere out there...
she was still waiting to find her son.
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