PART 1
“Don’t take pictures of that woman,” Alistair Carpenter said in a sharp voice. The reporters quickly lowered their cameras.
The director of the Crestview Clinic had just told the press about a huge donation. He gave eighty million dollars to help homeless people during the freezing winter in Minneapolis. His expensive suit, his luxury watch, and the big black car waiting for him looked completely different from the small tents under the highway bridge near the river.
Alistair came to the camp just to smile, take photos, and leave. But then he saw her.
A thin woman walked slowly out of a blue tent, leaning on two old crutches. She did not have her right leg below the knee. Her long, messy hair covered her face. When she looked up, Alistair felt like he could not breathe.
It was Nellie Fields, his ex-wife.
Fifteen years ago, Nellie lived in a beautiful house in Wayzata. She hosted big dinners for rich businesspeople and went to every hospital party with Alistair. Now she wore a old sweater, a torn skirt, and crutches held together with gray tape.
“Nellie?” he whispered.
She looked at him. Her eyes showed deep fear, not surprise. She turned around and tried to walk away.
“Wait! Please wait!” Alistair ran after her.
Nellie tried to move faster, but one of her crutches broke in half. She fell hard onto the cold ground. A few volunteers ran over to help her up.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, covering her face.
Alistair knelt down in the mud a few steps away from her.
“Let me help you,” he said softly.
Nellie looked at him with angry tears in her eyes.
“You helped me enough when you threw me out of your house while I was pregnant,” she shouted.
The reporters heard everything. The cameras went up again. The media manager tried to stop them, but it was too late.
Alistair could not move.
“Pregnant?” he asked.
Nellie pressed her lips together. She looked like she had just said a secret she wanted to keep forever. She stood up with a volunteer’s help and walked back to her tent.
“Nellie, I did not know about a baby,” he called out.
She pulled the blue tarp shut in front of him.
Alistair stayed on his knees while the camera flashes went off around him. He remembered the day he asked for a divorce after she lost three babies. He remembered his mother, Katie Carpenter, telling him that a family like theirs needed a boy to take over the business. He also remembered Olivia Gilbert, the daughter of a rich medicine businessman, and the big contract he signed right after marrying her.
For years, he believed that Nellie took thirty thousand dollars and left town forever.
That afternoon, before getting into his truck, he spoke to his secretary.
“Find out everything about Nellie’s life after she left my house,” he ordered. “I want to know where she lived, who was with her, and why she lost her leg.”
Four days later, the secretary walked into his office looking very sad. He put a birth certificate on the desk and a death certificate right on top of it.
“Doctor, you had a son,” the secretary said quietly. “His name was Sawyer Fields.”
Alistair looked at the date of death and felt his heart break.
The boy died when he was only ten years old at a construction site owned by the Crestview Clinic.
And the signature that hid the accident belonged to his own mother, Katie Carpenter.
Alistair sat back, terrified of what he was about to find out.
PART 2
Alistair read the papers until the sun came up. Sawyer was born eight months after the divorce. On the birth certificate, the father’s name was blank. Nellie raised him alone in a tiny room in a poor neighborhood. She worked early mornings cleaning train stations and collected cardboard in the afternoon to get money.
There were school photos too. Sawyer had the same small spot next to his eyebrow as Alistair. His smile looked just like Alistair’s late father.
“How did he die?” Alistair asked with a shaking voice.
The secretary handed him another paper.
“The public report says it was a small accident with no injuries,” the secretary said. “But the real logbook says a heavy metal beam fell and crushed the boy. Nellie lost her leg trying to pull him out.”
“Why was my son at a dangerous building site?” Alistair asked angrily.
“That is the worst part, sir,” the secretary answered.
Two men hired by a private guard company tried to grab the boy after school. Sawyer got scared, ran away, and went into the construction yard to hide. Nellie ran in after him. The site did not have any safety walls, and a big crane was moving heavy metal even though it was broken.
Alistair hit the desk with his hand.
“Who hired those men to scare my boy?” he shouted.
The secretary opened a red folder marked “Secret.” Inside were bank papers, emails, and a note from Katie Carpenter.
The note said: “Get the boy. He is the only male heir. Do not let Alistair know until we have full custody.”
Alistair dropped the paper.
His mother knew about Sawyer for ten years and tried to steal him from his mother.
After the accident, Katie paid 120 million dollars to the building company, city officials, and two news writers. They deleted the death from the records so the government would not close the new hospital building.
That night, Alistair went to the big family house to face his mother.
“Did you order men to kidnap my son?” Alistair asked coldly.
Katie did not deny it.
“I wanted to bring him to the family where he belonged,” she said.
“He had a mother who loved him!” Alistair said.
“She was a poor woman who made him sleep in a dirty office,” Katie said back. “I could give him a great school, a rich name, and a real future.”
“You killed his future!” Alistair yelled.
