“Oh, baby.
I thought you were too.”
Then he said something that broke my heart all over again.
“I waited for you.
I didn’t know where you were, but sometimes I thought you’d come.”
I kissed his hair.
“I would have come every single day if I’d known.”
And in that moment, I made myself a promise.
Whatever happened next, Benjamin would never again have to wonder whether his mother had wanted him.
CHAPTER 13 — THE LAST LIE
The DNA results confirmed what my heart had known.
Eli Carter was Benjamin Walker.
My son.
But the reunion was only the beginning.
Benjamin couldn’t simply return to the life he had lost.
He had school records under another name.
Friends who knew him as Eli.
Memories shaped by years of deception.
And nightmares he couldn’t explain.
He needed time.
Specialized care.
The freedom to decide what parts of his old identity he wanted to reclaim.
