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The driver smirked and lightly pressed the accelerator, causing the engine to growl. It felt less like driving and more like mocking the slow, painful pace of the old woman struggling along the roadside.
But Evelyn neither reacted nor complained.
She simply stopped walking.
With a quiet sigh, she adjusted the burden pressing against her aching back and slowly lifted her face toward the open window.
Years of hardship had weathered her features. Dirt clung to her skin. Strands of gray hair escaped from beneath her scarf. Yet there was still something unmistakable in her eyes.
The instant the driver’s gaze met hers, everything changed.
The amusement disappeared from his face.
His expression froze.
Color drained from his skin so quickly it seemed as though all the blood had left his body. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.
For several long seconds, he could not breathe.
He simply stared.
Then his lips parted.
His voice emerged as little more than a whisper.
“Mom?… But we buried you twenty years ago.”
The woman beside him immediately stopped laughing.
Her confused eyes darted between her husband and the ragged stranger standing by the road.
“Ethan?” she asked softly. “What are you talking about?”
But Ethan Parker barely heard her.
His entire world had suddenly tilted.
Twenty years earlier, his wealthy and controlling father had destroyed their family after a vicious divorce. Determined to gain complete control of the family’s assets, he had orchestrated an elaborate deception.
He arranged a closed-casket funeral.
He told everyone that Ethan’s mother had died.
In reality, she had been taken away and confined to a remote psychiatric institution thousands of miles from home. Her inheritance, her rights, and her identity had all been stripped from her.
At the time, Ethan had been only a teenager.
Heartbroken.
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