“Mom, please,” Quincy said, his voice taking on that weedling tone I’d heard so many times before. “I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be, but don’t make any hasty decisions. This man, this shake, he could be manipulating you. You’re vulnerable right now.”
“Vulnerable?” I repeated, my voice dangerously quiet. “The only people who made me vulnerable were you and your wife when you stole my money and left me on the streets.”
Rashid placed a gentle hand on my arm and I drew strength from his presence.
For 40 years, this man had carried love for me in his heart. Meanwhile, the son I’d devoted my life to had been planning to rob and abandon me.
“Perhaps we should discuss practical matters,” Rasheed said smoothly. “Your hotel bill, for instance. I understand you’re having some financial difficulties.”
Quincy’s face flushed red.
“That’s temporary. We’re sorting it out.”
“With the $15,000 you crowdfunded from your missing mother campaign?” I asked.
The color drained from his face.
“How did you…”
“I know everything, Quincy. Every lie you told, every dollar you stole, every sympathy donation you collected while I was sleeping on a bench wondering if I’d ever see home again.”
Elanie finally found her voice.
“Look, we all made mistakes here, but we’re family and family forgives each other, right, Mom?”
She smiled that saccharine smile that had always made my skin crawl.
“I’m sure we can put this behind us and move forward. Especially now that you found such a generous friend.”
The way she said generous made my stomach turn.
Even now, even after everything, they were already calculating how to profit from my relationship with Rasheed.
“You’re right about one thing,” I [clears throat] said. “Family does forgive each other, but you’re not my family anymore.”
“Don’t say that,” Quincy pleaded. “I’m your son. I made a mistake, but I’m still your son.”
“No,” I said firmly. “My son wouldn’t have left his mother homeless in a foreign country. My son wouldn’t have stolen from the woman who worked three jobs to put him through college. My son wouldn’t have exploited my disappearance for money while I was suffering.”
I walked over to where Rasheed sat and took his hand, his fingers intertwined with mine. Strong and reassuring.
“This man loved me when I had nothing. He remembers the woman I was before I was worn down by years of your selfishness. He sees value in me that goes beyond what I can provide financially.”
“But I love you, too,” Quincy said desperately. “You’re my mother. I’ve always loved you.”
“No, you loved what I could do for you. The money I provided, the problems I solved, the sacrifices I made so your life would be easier. But me, the person I am, you never saw me at all.”
Rashid’s assistant knocked and entered carrying a folder. He whispered something in Arabic to Rashid, who nodded grimly.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The final details about their financial situation,” Rasheed said, opening the folder. “It’s worse than we thought. The hotel bill is nearly $12,000. They have maximum debt on three credit cards. All in your name, Gretchen. The cards they’ve been using since arriving in Dubai.”
My blood ran cold.
“They opened credit cards in my name?”
“Using your personal information, your social security number, your address. The applications were submitted online 2 weeks before your trip.”
I stared at Quincy in horror.
This hadn’t been a spontaneous betrayal. They’d planned this for weeks, maybe months.
The loving son routine, the insistence on this expensive vacation, the way they’d convinced me to hand over my credit card, it had all been calculated.
“You planned this,” I whispered. “This whole trip was a setup.”
Quincy’s face crumpled.
“Mom, let me explain.”
“Explain what? How you committed identity theft? How you premeditated abandoning your elderly mother in a foreign country?”
“We needed money,” he burst out. “Do you have any idea how expensive everything is? The house payments, Elani’s medical school loans, the car payments were drowning. And you were just sitting on that nest egg doing nothing with it.”
“That nest egg was my retirement fund. The money I saved working double shifts for 30 years so I wouldn’t be a burden on anyone in my old age.”
“But you were going to leave it to me anyway,” he said, as if that justified everything. “We just needed it sooner.”
The casual entitlement in his voice was breathtaking. He genuinely believed he had a right to my money, my security, my future.
“You were never going to inherit anything,” I said quietly. “I changed my will 6 months ago.”
His face went white.
“What?”
“I left everything to charity, to organizations that help single mothers. Actually, I saw too much of myself in them. Women struggling alone while the fathers of their children disappeared.”
Elanie made a choking sound.