At the park, my son suddenly shouted, “Mom! Dad’s in a super fancy car!” I turned, confused—and then froze. There, in a sleek black Mercedes, was Daniel. My Daniel. He stepped out, wearing a perfectly tailored suit, polished shoes, and an expression I didn’t recognize. It shattered everything I believed about him. About us. We were broke—weren’t we? He’d been saying for months that he couldn’t find work, that he was sending out resumes, going to interviews. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept replaying the image in my mind. The next morning,
I followed him. Not to a job interview like he claimed—but to a gleaming skyscraper downtown. I parked and watched from across the street as he entered the building. A short while later, I saw him again—outside, talking to a well-dressed woman and two teenagers. One of them had his eyes. When I confronted him that evening, he didn’t lie. His face fell. And then, slowly, he confessed. Daniel had been born into a world of wealth I couldn’t have imagined—a corporate empire,