On the sixth night, he found her again. She was standing by the same stretch of road, looking frail against the vast night sky. Michael didn’t hesitate. He pulled over, walked straight up to her, and took her hands.
— “Eleanor,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Please. No more disappearing. Tell me the truth. Who are you, and how do you know my life?”
Eleanor looked at him for a long time. Finally, a tear tracked down her wrinkled cheek. She sat down on a nearby milestone, and Michael sat beside her.
— “A long time ago,” she began, her voice trembling, “I worked as a nanny and housekeeper for a wealthy family. I was young, alone, and I had a secret. I had a baby boy, but I had no way to care for him. No money, no family of my own.” She paused, struggling with the memory. “The woman I worked for—your mother—she couldn’t have children. She saw how much I loved my son, and she saw how much I was struggling.”
Michael listened, his heart stopping.
— “She proposed an arrangement,” Eleanor continued. “She would raise you as her own. She would give you the life, the education, and the security I never could. In exchange, I would stay on as the nanny. I could be near you, watch you grow, but I could never tell you the truth. I agreed because I wanted you to have everything.”
Michael felt the world shifting beneath his feet.
— “But then… she died,” Eleanor whispered. “When you were five, she passed away suddenly. Your father—the man you call your father—he couldn’t bear to look at me. I reminded him too much of the secret, of the wife he lost. He fired me and told me if I ever tried to contact you, he’d make sure I went to jail for ‘abandoning’ you. I was terrified. So I watched from a distance. I worked in your schools, I sold flowers where I knew you’d pass by. I just wanted to see you become the man you are today.”
Michael was speechless. The “mother” who had disappeared hadn’t been his biological mother—this woman, Eleanor, was. The woman who had been a ghost in his life was standing right in front of him.
— “You’re my mother,” he breathed, the words feeling heavy and strange.
Eleanor nodded, sobbing quietly.
— “I am. I’m so sorry, Michael. I did it for you. I wanted you to be an Anderson, not the son of a penniless maid.”
Michael didn’t care about the money or the status. He reached out and pulled her into a tight embrace. For the first time in 45 years, the hole in his heart felt like it was being filled.
— “You don’t have to be sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “You stayed. You watched over me. That’s more than I ever knew.”
