“Evelyn, you have to go. They want you to testify.”
“Me? Why?”
“To tell the truth.”
Evelyn sat quietly.
“I’m going to see Ethan.”
Linda didn’t know what to say. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”
Madeline found the court envelope in Ethan’s desk drawer.
She read it once, then again.
Petitioner: Evelyn Carter, mother of the respondent.
When Ethan walked in, she held the paper up.
“You have a living mother.”
Ethan froze. “Madeline… I can explain.”
“You told me you had no family.”
“It’s complicated…”
“You lied.”
“I didn’t lie. I… omitted.”
Madeline looked at him like she’d never seen him before.
“You ‘omitted’ a blind mother you threw out of her own house?”
She called her parents.
Within hours, Patricia arrived.
“It’s true?” she demanded. “You abandoned your blind mother and sold her property?”
Ethan didn’t answer.
Dr. Barnes listened, stone-faced.
“Ethan, I need to reconsider your position with our clinic.”
“This has nothing to do with my work.”
“It has everything to do with it. Reputation is everything.”
At the hearing, Evelyn entered holding Linda’s arm. Her blind eyes faced forward.
Ethan stood on the other side. He didn’t look at her.