“Make sure you get to my parents’ house as early as possible because my mother wants to host a special family dinner,” he had told me over the phone. “I have an early shift at the clinic tomorrow, so can we please keep it short?” I had asked while trying to balance the phone on my shoulder.
“Just get here and do not start an argument about your schedule for once,” he had snapped before ending the call abruptly. I realized now that his behavior over the last two weeks had been a series of red flags I chose to ignore.
He had been obsessively checking my phone, asking pointed questions about my male colleagues, and growing silent whenever I received a work notification. “This document is fundamentally wrong, and I am telling you right now that Toby is your biological son,” I declared while holding the paper up.
Adelaide stood up slowly from her chair and walked toward me with the grace of a predator. “My son will no longer spend another dime supporting the child of some stranger you met while working at that common clinic,” she hissed.
