CHAPTER 2
“If my mom believes I'm dying, she'll give me every dollar she has left.”
Abigail Riley stopped cold outside Room 12 at St. Jude Community Hospital. Inside her handbag was a lottery ticket worth twenty million dollars. She had arrived prepared to transform the life of Spencer, her only son, but those words cut through her heart before she could even reach for the door.
The door stood slightly ajar.
Spencer was speaking on the phone with a woman, and the conversation was playing through the speaker.
“Don't you ever feel guilty?” the woman asked.
“Sometimes,” he answered with a brief laugh. “But my mom likes feeling needed. I don't even have to directly ask her for anything. I only tell her I'm scared, and she always figures out some way to pay.”
Abigail's fingers tightened around her purse.
For months, she had sold her jewelry, pawned her late mother's sewing machine, and borrowed money to cover specialists, medical examinations, and prescriptions. The doctors said Spencer had a chance to recover, but every new setback seemed to tear another gap in her finances.
That same morning, after checking the winning lottery numbers for the fifth time, she had pictured herself telling him beside his hospital bed:
“You'll never have to worry about anything again, my son.”
Now she stood listening as he planned how to use a fortune he did not even know she had won.
“When I leave the hospital,” Spencer went on, “I'll tell her I need money to rescue my business. She'll cover the shop rent, get me another printer, and pay off all my credit cards. She always finds a way to fix everything for me.”
“And what if the good news she mentioned isn't about you?”
Spencer laughed once more.
“Everything eventually becomes about me.”
Abigail felt the breath disappear from her chest. She pressed herself against the wall to keep her legs from giving way.
At sixty years old, she was learning that the son she had sacrificed everything for did not recognize her love as love. To him, she was nothing more than a bank account without a password.
A nurse came down the hallway carrying a folder.
“Mrs. Riley, aren't you going inside? Your son has been asking for you.”
She made herself smile.
“I forgot a few documents in my car, sweetheart. I'll come right back.”
She headed toward the elevator without turning around.
When she reached the parking lot, she climbed into her old car, locked the doors, pulled out the lottery ticket, and checked the numbers yet again.
There was no error.
She now had enough money to purchase homes, build businesses, and provide financial security for several generations.
Her phone vibrated.
Spencer: “Where are you? You told me you had good news.”
Abigail answered: “The traffic is awful. We'll speak later.”
Then she switched off her phone. For the first time in thirty-four years, she did not rush to her son the moment he called.
Rather than going back into the hospital, she drove to her modest home in the Independencia neighborhood.
She laid the lottery ticket on the same table where she had once counted coins to settle Spencer's debts and stared at it in silence for several long minutes.
She could collect the prize, give him a portion, and act as though she had never overheard the conversation.
The Abigail she used to be would have done exactly that. But something inside her had broken outside that hospital room.
She opened a notebook and wrote down three questions:
How many times has he lied to me?
How much money has he taken from me?
How far would he be willing to go if he learned I'd won the lottery?
Before she could finish the final question, a message appeared from a number she did not recognize.
“Mrs. Riley, don't tell Spencer about the lottery yet. There is something far worse you need to find out.”
It was signed: Naomi.
May you like
And Abigail understood that what she had heard outside the hospital room had only revealed the first crack.
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