Chapter 1
"I Slapped My Son for Disrespecting His Stepfather—Then He Told Me What Happened While I Was at Work
The second my sixteen-year-old son shouted, “You’re not my father!” at my husband, I slapped him across the face.
The whole kitchen went silent.
Noah stared at me with one hand pressed against his cheek.
My husband, Mark, stood beside me and said quietly, “Sarah, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” I snapped.
Mark had helped raise Noah for almost eight years.
He drove him to football practice, stayed up when he was sick, and never once asked Noah to call him Dad.
So hearing my son speak to him like that made something inside me explode.
“You apologize to Mark right now.”
Noah looked at me with tears burning in his eyes.
“You don’t know what he did.”
Mark immediately shook his head.
“He’s angry because I took his phone away.”
I turned back to Noah.
“That doesn’t give you the right to disrespect him.”
Noah laughed bitterly.
“Of course you believe him.”
“Go to your room.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“What did you say?”
He reached into his backpack with shaking hands.
Mark suddenly stepped forward.
“Noah, don’t.”
That was the first moment I felt something was wrong.
Noah pulled out an old envelope and threw it onto the kitchen table.
My name was written across the front.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
It belonged to Noah’s biological father, Jason, who had supposedly disappeared from our lives nine years earlier.
My knees almost gave out.
“Where did you get this?”
Noah pointed at Mark.
“Ask him.”
Mark’s face went pale.
Noah’s voice cracked.
“He found it in the mailbox three years ago.”
I looked at my husband.
“Three years?”
Noah wiped his eyes.
“Dad never abandoned me, Mom.”
Mark whispered, “Sarah, let me explain.”
But Noah pulled another stack of envelopes from his backpack.
“There are twenty-seven more.”
May you like
I could barely breathe.
Then Noah looked directly at me and said, “And the last one says Dad is coming here tomorrow because Mark has been sending every letter back.”
