… stood a frail, elderly woman with silver hair, leaning heavily on a cane. Her face, wrinkled with age, lit up with a smile so radiant it seemed to erase years from her features.
“Billy! You’re home!” she cried out, her voice trembling with pure joy.
My son—whose name is actually Leo—didn’t correct her. He didn’t pull away. Instead, my 10-year-old boy, who had been so cold to me just the day before, dropped his backpack on the porch and hugged her gently, careful of her fragile frame.
“Hi, Mom. I told you I’d come,” he said, his voice soft and patient. “I skipped the bus so we could have extra time.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. I stood hidden behind a large oak tree, completely baffled. Who was this woman? And why was my son pretending to be her child?
They went inside, but the front window curtains were open. I crept closer, crouching beneath the sill to listen. I watched as the old woman poured him a glass of milk and set down a plate of cookies. Leo sat at her small kitchen table and pulled out his report card—the same one he hadn’t shown me yet.
“Look, Mom,” he said, pointing to an ‘A’ in history. “I did good, just like you said I would.”
The woman clapped her hands. “Oh, Billy! I knew it! You were always so smart. My sweet boy.” She reached out and stroked his cheek, her eyes glossy and distant. “I missed you so much while you were away.”
“I missed you too,” Leo replied without a hint of hesitation.
I stayed there for an hour, watching my son read a book to her. He was patient. He was kind. He was the warm, loving boy I knew, but he was giving that love to a stranger. Finally, he stood up to leave.
“I have to go do my homework now, Mom,” he said. “I’ll call you tonight, okay?”
“Okay, Billy. Be safe,” she whispered.
As soon as Leo stepped off the porch and turned the corner, I stepped out. “Leo.”
He jumped, his face turning pale when he saw me. “Mom? I… I can explain. Please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad,” I said, my voice shaking. “I just want to know who that is.”
Leo looked down at his shoes, tears welling in his eyes. “That’s Mrs. Higgins. I met her a few months ago when she fell down in her yard. I helped her up, and she called me ‘Billy.’ She started crying and hugging me.”
He looked up at me, his expression pleading. “Mom, Billy was her son. He died a long time ago in a car accident when he was my age. She has… I think she has that memory sickness. Sometimes she knows I’m Leo, but mostly she thinks I’m Billy coming home from school. She’s all alone in there. She waits by the phone for him.”
“So you call her?” I asked, the lump in my throat growing.
“Yeah,” Leo wiped a tear. “I call her to tell her I’m coming over so she doesn’t get scared. And I visit her when she’s having a bad day. Today was a bad day. She was crying on the phone yesterday. I just… I couldn’t let her think Billy forgot her.”
The air that had been knocked out of me the day before rushed back in, but this time it brought a flood of tears. I wasn’t losing my son to rebellion; I had raised a boy with a heart so big it could heal a stranger’s broken one.
“Come here,” I said, opening my arms. Leo rushed into them, sobbing.
“I’m sorry I lied,” he muffled into my coat.
“You are a good man, Leo,” I whispered, kissing the top of his head. “But from now on, we do this together. Mrs. Higgins shouldn’t be alone.”
The next day, we both went to the house. When Mrs. Higgins opened the door, she looked confused.
“Mrs. Higgins,” Leo said gently, holding my hand. “I brought my Mom to meet you. She made us a casserole.”
Her eyes cleared for a moment, seeing the two of us. She smiled, a little sadly but genuinely. “Well,” she said, opening the door wide. “Come on in. It’s nice to have family visit.”
We didn’t lose our son that day; our family just got a little bit bigger.
