I became a mother at seventeen.
For eighteen years, I believed the boy I loved had walked away from us.
Then my son took a DNA test.
And one message unraveled everything I thought I knew.
I had been home maybe fifteen minutes when Leo walked into the kitchen looking like something had broken inside him.
The cake I was decorating still said CONGRATS, LEO! in uneven blue icing. I hadn’t even finished the border.
“Hey,” I said, glancing up. “You look awful. Please tell me you didn’t eat Grandpa’s potato salad again.”
He didn’t smile.
That’s when I put the piping bag down.
“Leo?”
He stood there, phone in his hand, gripping it too tight. Pale. Quiet. Not my easygoing kid.
“Mom… can you sit down?”
Nobody says that lightly.
I wiped my hands on a towel and tried to soften it. “If you got someone pregnant, I need a minute to emotionally prepare. I refuse to be called Grandma before I’m ready.”
A weak breath of a laugh.
“Not that.”
