A MOTHER WENT TO PRISON INSTEAD OF HER SON

The tires crunched against gravel as the car came to a slow stop in the middle of the forest.

Maria’s pulse pounded in her ears.

Trees towered on either side, thick and silent, like silent witnesses to something unspeakable. There was no house. No cabin. Nothing that looked like “home.”

Only shadows.

Andrei turned off the engine.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. Neither did she.

Then he finally turned to face her.

His face—once so familiar—looked foreign now. Hollow. Emotionless.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” he said, almost like a whisper.

Maria clutched her old purse tighter. “What are you talking about?”

“I had a life,” he said. “People respected me. They didn’t know. I was doing fine. And then they had to let you out early.”

His voice grew colder with every word.

“I took the fall,” she said, her voice shaking. “I went to prison so you wouldn’t spend the rest of your life there.”

“I never asked you to,” he snapped.

Those words hit her like a slap.

She stared at him, speechless.

“I needed you to disappear,” he added, his tone bitter. “And you did. But now you’re back. You’re a problem.”

Her mouth opened, but no sound came.

“I told them you died in prison,” he muttered, almost to himself.

And then it clicked.

The forged death certificate. The closed accounts. Her name wiped clean from everything.

He had erased her.

“Why are we here, Andrei?” she asked, her voice a trembling whisper.

Andrei stepped out of the car.

Maria’s instinct screamed—run.

But where?

She opened the door, stepping out slowly, her feet crunching on dead leaves. Cold wind whipped through her thin coat.

Andrei walked to the trunk, opened it, and pulled something out.

A shovel.

“No…” she whispered, staggering backward. “Please. I gave up everything for you.”

He didn’t answer.

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she dropped to her knees. “You were my baby,” she sobbed. “I carried you inside me. I protected you—even when you didn’t deserve it!”

Silence.

Then, slowly, Andrei dropped the shovel.

He stood there, shaking.

And for a moment—just a moment—Maria saw a flicker of the boy she once knew.

But it passed.

He got back in the car, slammed the door, and peeled off down the road—leaving her alone in the woods.

She sat in the dirt, her hands muddy, her face streaked with tears.

And yet… she smiled.

Because in her purse, tucked behind the photos of her son as a baby, was the recording.

The confession.

She had known something was wrong the moment he came to pick her up.

And while he was driving, she pressed “record.”

She had lost four years for a crime she didn’t commit.

Now, he would lose the rest of his life—for what he almost did.

And justice, finally, would have a face. Hers.