Chapter 4
Sarah Mitchell’s apartment was on the wrong side of town.
The kind of street where the police only came when someone called them.
Where the buildings leaned on each other for support.
Where the air smelled like fried food and regret.
Richard parked his Mercedes three blocks away.
He didn’t want anyone to see it.
Didn’t want anyone to know he was there.
He walked.
His thousand-dollar shoes crunching on broken glass.
His tailored suit drawing stares.
He felt every one of them.
Judging.
Knowing.
He found the building.
147 Maple.
The name was a joke.
There were no maples.
Just cracked concrete and a dead tree someone had spray-painted.
He climbed three flights of stairs.
The carpet was sticky.
The walls were thin.
He could hear a baby crying.
A TV yelling.
A couple fighting about money.
All the sounds of the life he’d escaped.
The life he’d almost had.
Apartment 3B.
The door was dented.
A handwritten sign was taped to it:
NO SOLICITORS. WE’RE BROKE AND TIRED.
Richard almost laughed.
Almost.
He raised his hand to knock.
And froze.
Through the door—
he heard her.
Sarah.
Coughing.
A deep, wet, rattling cough that went on forever.
Then silence.
Then a woman’s voice—softer—
“Mom? You okay?”
Ethan.
“Fine, baby. Just… just need some water.”
“Mom, you can’t keep doing this. The doctor said you need surgery. You can’t work two jobs and—”
“Ethan, stop. We’ve been over this. We don’t have the money. And we’re not taking charity. Especially not from him.”
Richard’s chest tightened.
Surgery.
She was sick.
And he didn’t know.
Sixteen years he didn’t know.
“Mom, he has more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes,” Ethan said.
“One phone call and this is fixed. Why won’t you let me—”
“Because!” Sarah snapped.
Then softer.
“Because if I take his money, he wins. He gets to feel like he fixed the thing he broke. And he didn’t. He can’t. Some things don’t get fixed, baby. They just… are.”
A pause.
“Did you really go to his daughter’s school?”
Ethan didn’t answer.
“Ethan.”
“…Yeah.”
Sarah sighed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I just… I saw him. With her. He loves her so much, Mom. You can see it. He’d burn the world down for her. And I just kept thinking—why not me? What was wrong with me that he could leave so easy?”
His voice broke.
Richard’s hand was still raised.
Knuckles white.
“Oh, baby,” Sarah said.
There was the sound of movement.
Of a hug.
“There was never anything wrong with you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. The only good thing. He’s the one who lost out. Not you. Never you.”
Richard couldn’t breathe.
He’d spent sixteen years telling himself he’d made the right choice.
That Sarah would’ve been unhappy.
That Ethan would’ve hated growing up poor.
That he’d done them both a favor by leaving.
And now—
listening through a dented door—
he realized he’d just been lying to himself.
He lowered his hand.
Turned to leave.
And stepped on a loose floorboard.
CREAK.
Loud as a gunshot.
The voices inside stopped.
The door flew open.
Ethan stood there.
Shirtless.
A scar running down his ribs Richard had never seen.
His hand was raised like he was ready to fight.
Then he saw Richard.
His face went from surprised—
to angry—
to something worse.
Nothing.
Absolute nothing.
“What are you doing here?”
Richard opened his mouth.
No sound came out.
Sarah appeared behind Ethan.
Richard’s heart stopped.
She was thinner.
Tired.
Bruises under her eyes.
But it was her.
God help him—
it was still her.
The same hair.
The same mouth.
The same eyes that had once looked at him like he was the whole world.
Now they looked at him like he was a stranger.
Worse than a stranger.
A ghost.
“Richard,” she said.
Her voice was flat.
No anger.
No sadness.
Just… nothing.
Like he was already dead to her.
“Sarah,” he said.
His own voice was barely a whisper.
“You look… good.”
She laughed.
It was a dry, hollow sound.
“I’m dying, Richard. Don’t lie to make it worse.”
The words hit him like a fist.
Dying.
“W-what?”
“Lung disease,” she said.
“From working in that factory for ten years. The one with no ventilation. The one I took because you left me with seven hundred dollars and a baby. I need a transplant. Or something. The doctors use big words. Bottom line—without eighty thousand dollars, I’m dead by Christmas.”
She leaned against the doorframe.
“Is that why you’re here? You heard I’m dying and you want to make sure I stay dead so your perfect little life doesn’t get messy?”
“NO!” Richard said.
Louder than he meant to.
“No, Sarah. I came to… I don’t know what I came to do. I just needed to see you. To see him. To know it’s real.”
Ethan stepped between them.
Protective.
“It’s real,” he said.
“And now you’ve seen us. Go back to your mansion. Go back to your wife. We’re fine without you. We’ve always been fine without you.”
“Ethan, she’s dying,” Richard said.
“Let me help.”
“Help?” Ethan laughed.
“Where were you when she was working double shifts and I was making dinner for myself at eight years old? Where were you when the landlord evicted us and we lived in the car for three months? Where were you when I got beat up in seventh grade because I had holes in my shoes and the kids called me trash?”
He stepped closer.
“You don’t get to show up sixteen years later and play hero. That job’s taken. I’ve been doing it since I was ten.”
Richard looked past him.
At Sarah.
“Please,” he said.
“Let me pay for the surgery. Whatever it costs. I have it. You know I have it.”
Sarah looked at him.
For a long time.
He could see her thinking.
Weighing her life against her pride.
And he knew—
knew with every fiber of his being—
she was going to say no.
She was going to die rather than take his money.
Because that was the kind of woman she was.
The kind of woman he’d been stupid enough to leave.
“No,” she said.
Just like he knew she would.
“I’d rather die than owe you anything.”
“Mom—” Ethan started.
“No,” she said again.
Final.
“Richard, get out of my house. Get out of my life. And if you ever come near my son again—if you so much as drive down this street—I will call every reporter in this city and tell them exactly what you did. I don’t care about your money. I don’t care about your reputation. I only care that he gets to finish school and get out of this neighborhood and never be anything like you.”
She started to close the door.
Richard’s hand shot out.
Stopped it.
“Wait.”
He pulled out his wallet.
Fumbled for a card.
His black card.
Unlimited.
“Take it,” he said.
“Use it. Don’t use it. I don’t care. It’s yours. No strings. No reporters. No nothing. Just… don’t die. Please.”
Sarah looked at the card.
Then at him.
She didn’t take it.
“I mean it, Richard. No strings.”
“Then throw it away,” he said.
“Cut it up. I don’t care. But if you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
She closed the door.
Click.
Richard stood in the hallway.
The card still in his hand.
The sounds of the building around him.
He slipped the card under the door.
He heard it land.
Soft.
On the sticky carpet.
He waited.
No sound from inside.
No movement.
He turned and walked away.
Each step heavier than the last.
He didn’t see—
through the peephole—
Sarah watching him leave.
Tears running down her face.
And he didn’t see—
Ethan pick up the card.
Stare at it.
May you like
And for the first time all day—
look like he might actually cry.
