When I was eight, my mother was hospitalized for a long time before my father told me she had passed away. Devastated, I helped him pack as we moved away to escape the painful memories. A few months later, my father remarried Erika, who quickly became cruel towards me, constantly yelling and giving me chores. She would belittle me, even blaming me for my mother’s death.
As I grew older, Erika’s hostility never stopped. One day, when I was 17, I found her touching my mother’s portrait. Furious, I confronted her, and we had a heated argument. My father sided with her, and I left the house, running to my old hometown. I stumbled upon a homeless woman who looked like my mother. To my shock, it was her—she had been alive all along, abandoned by my father who had lied about her death.
My mother explained how my father had taken everything, leaving her without money or means to find me. She’d sold our old house and struggled to survive. We reunited and began rebuilding our lives. I took a job, went back to school, and helped my mother regain her career. I also changed my last name to “Fraser,” rejecting my father and embracing my true family.
