I threw the old backpack on the floor, looked at the 12-year-old boy with a cold gaze:
— “Go. You are not my son. Your mother is dead, I have no obligation to raise you anymore. Go wherever you want.”

He did not cry. He just bowed his head very low, gently picked up the torn backpack, turned away, without a word of begging.

Ten years later, when the truth was revealed, I only wished time could be turned back.

My name is John Miller, 36 years old when my wife – Anna – died after a stroke. She passed away too suddenly, leaving me with a child – Peter – 12 years old. But Peter was not my biological child. He was Anna’s child before coming to me.

I married Anna when she was 26 years old, a woman who had experienced a nameless love affair and was pregnant alone.

At that time, I loved her, admired her will to be a single mother, and accepted a child that was not hers. But love is not lasting if it is not blood. I raised Peter out of obligation, nothing more.

Everything fell apart when Anna died. There was no one left to keep me close to him. Peter was silent, withdrawn, polite but distant. Perhaps he sensed it – I had never truly loved him.

Just a month after my wife’s funeral, I said those harsh words to him:
— “Get out of the house. Whether you live or die is your business.”

I thought he would cry, would beg. But no. He just left. And I – did not feel any remorse.

I sold the old house in San Diego, moved to another area. Business was going well, I had another woman by my side, no children to worry about. In the early years, I still occasionally thought about Peter – not out of worry, but out of curiosity: where was he? How was he living?

But then time killed all curiosity. Where would a 12-year-old kid – without family, without relatives – go? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I used to think: if he died, maybe he would be relieved of his debt.

Until one day, exactly ten years later.

I received a phone call from an unknown number:
— “Hello, Mr. Miller? Can you come to the opening of TPH Gallery on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, this Saturday? Someone really wants you there.”

I was about to hang up because I wasn’t interested. But the last sentence made me stop:
— “Don’t you want to know about Peter?”

My heart felt like it was being squeezed. Peter? I hadn’t heard that name in ten years. I was silent for a few seconds, then said curtly:
— “I’ll come.”

The opening was crowded, the space modern, full of paintings. I walked in, a little lost. On the walls were modern oil paintings, giving a cold, lonely feeling. I read the author’s name: TPH – those three letters made me choke up.

— “Hello, Mr. Miller.”

A young man, tall and thin, dressed simply but with deep eyes stood before me.

I was stunned. It was Peter.

He was no longer the skinny child I had chased away. Before me was a grown man, mature, and in his eyes there was something both familiar and distant…

I stood dumbfounded in front of Peter – now a much-praised artist. The paintings in the gallery were filled with emotion: a lonely child in the rain, eyes looking out a dark window, the silhouette of a mother holding her child’s hand on a deserted beach…

My chest ached. Although the title of the work was not mentioned, I knew it was all his memories – memories of a traumatic childhood that I was the one who created.

Peter stepped closer, his voice low but calm:
— “Do you remember that day? The day I left the house, carrying only my old backpack.”

I choked up, unable to say a word.

A familiar name

After the exhibition, I followed a few of Peter’s friends to ask more questions. They said:
— “Peter used to live thanks to a woman named Sarah. She owned a small restaurant in Los Angeles. She adopted him, fed him, sent him to school, and treated him like her own son. Without Sarah, there would be no Peter today.”

The name Sarah stunned me. Sarah was the woman I had known briefly, a poor widow in a working-class area. Back then, I had looked down on her, thinking she was just a miserable person.

I never expected that she would reach out to save the boy I had cruelly chased away.

The bitter truth

I went to Sarah’s grave. People said she died two years ago of cancer. The inscription on the tombstone read: “A mother who gave her whole life to abandoned children.”

Next to the grave were fresh flowers and a handwritten letter from Peter:
“Mom Sarah, thank you for teaching me that love does not need blood. Without you, I would not exist today.”

I sat down, my trembling hands touching the cold stone. I understood that Peter had a real mother – and I, the nominal stepfather, had abandoned him at the moment he needed me most.

Late one evening, after the guests had left the gallery, Peter came and sat across from me. He no longer had a hateful look, only a strange calmness.

“Mr. John, I don’t call you father, because you were never my father. The one who gave me warmth, the one who took me to school, the one who taught me to believe in kindness – that was my mother Sarah. And you… you taught me the lesson of indifference. I am grateful to both of you.”

I bowed my head, tears falling continuously. I wanted to say sorry, to beg for compensation, but everything was too late. Peter no longer needed my love

From that day on, I lived in torment. I had money, a stable life, but every time I looked in the mirror, I only saw the image of a coward, a failed father.

Peter was successful, brilliant, but that light was no longer related to me. It belonged to his own willpower, and to a strange woman named Sarah.

As for me, in my last days, I only had one wish left: if only that day, I had reached out to hold him back, instead of cruelly saying “go wherever you want.