I threw the boy’s old bag onto the floor, glaring at his small, fragile frame. He was only twelve.
“Go,” I said coldly. “My son isn’t you. With your mother gone, I have no reason to keep you here. Leave. Go wherever you want.”
He didn’t beg. He didn’t even shed a tear.
Silently, he picked up his bag, lowered his head, and walked out of the house.
I thought I’d freed myself. But the truth caught up with me ten years later—and it crushed me.
When my wife passed away suddenly, I was left with her son. He wasn’t my blood. He was the result of a hidden relationship she had never spoken about.
I believed I was marrying her alone—not her past. Out of duty, not love, I raised him. And after the funeral, I pushed him away.
“Survive if you can,” I told him before closing the door on his childhood.
I sold the house, moved on, and erased him from my life. Sometimes I wondered where he was, but over time even that faded.
Until, eleven years later, a stranger’s voice on the phone froze me in place:
“Do you want to know what became of Rohan?”
Rohan. A name I hadn’t heard in a decade.
That Saturday, I walked into an art gallery.
And there he was.
The frail boy I had cast aside had grown into a calm, confident man. His works hung on every wall.
“You… how?” I muttered.
“I wanted you to see what Mom left behind—what you rejected,” he said, placing a painting in front of me.
Beneath a crimson veil, my wife lay on her hospital bed. Beside her was a picture of the three of us together—our family.
Then came the words that shattered me:
“Yes, I am your son. Mom was already expecting when she met you. She lied because she wanted your love. She thought the truth would scare you away.”
My knees buckled. I had abandoned my own flesh and blood.
Rohan handed me his mother’s journal. Her words bled through the pages:
“I was afraid you’d only love me for the child. But Rohan is yours. I wanted to tell you from the start. I hesitated, hoping your love was strong enough to overcome the truth.”
I wept like I hadn’t in years.
I tried to repair what was broken, but he kept his distance. “I don’t need a father,” he told me. “But I don’t hate you. Mom loved you too much for that.”
So I stayed in the shadows, supporting his gallery, helping from afar. Not to earn forgiveness, but just to make sure he was okay.
Then, on his 22nd birthday, Rohan made his mark at an international exhibition. On his page, he wrote only:
“For you, Mom. I made it.”
And then, for the first time in a decade, I received a message from him.
“This Saturday is the opening. If you’re free…”
At the bottom was one word that healed years of silence.
“Dad.”
