When I arrived home, all seven of them were waiting in the hallway.
Aaron spoke first. “Well?”
I shut the door and sat down in the kitchen. “The… the account is still active.”
“I told you they were alive!” Grace said.
Aaron shook his head. “No. No, there has to be another explanation.”
“There isn’t,” Grace said, and there was so much rage in her voice it startled me.
He turned on her. “You don’t know that.”
“Recent activity, Aaron! Who else could’ve been using that account? And why were only our documents in that box, not theirs?”
“I told you they were alive!”
Aaron looked at me then, not angry now. Desperate. “But if they took off, why didn’t they take us? Everything was prepared.”
“Something changed?” Mia whispered.
“Like they realized it would be too difficult to disappear with seven kids,” Jonah grumbled.
Grace’s face hardened. “So, they left us.”
I cleared my throat. I was furious, and more shocked than I’d ever been before, but I knew one thing for certain.
“Since they’re still alive, I think we should ask them what happened,” I said.
“How?” Aaron asked.
“We force them to come to us,” I replied.
“We should ask them what happened.”
The next day, I returned to the bank and spoke to the branch manager.
“I want to initiate closure proceedings on this account,” I said.
He frowned. “That may trigger immediate alerts to anyone currently using it.”
“Good.”
He studied me for a second, then nodded once. I handed over all the documents I’d carried from one institute to another when I handled my son’s affairs ten years ago.
***
Three days later, there was a knock at the front door.
“That may trigger immediate alerts to anyone currently using it.”
The man on my porch looked older and smaller than how I remembered my son, but it was undoubtedly him. Laura stood half a step behind, thinner than I remembered, eyes darting.
“So, it’s true. You are alive,” I said.
Behind me, all seven of them had gathered. I could feel them there without turning.
Daniel’s eyes flicked past me and widened when he saw them.
Aaron stepped forward. “Where have you been? And why did you leave us? We found the box with the money and our documents…”
Daniel and Laura looked at each other.
“We can explain,” Daniel said.
“So, it’s true. You are alive.”
“We wanted to take you all, we planned to,” Laura said, “but… There were seven of you. And Grace was only four.”
“We had to leave in a hurry that day. We didn’t even have time to come back for the money in that box. The situation was impossible,” Daniel said. He turned to me then. “It’s still impossible. Mom, please, you must reactivate that account. We need—”
Grace cut through his words like a blade.
“No!”
Everyone turned to her.
“It was impossible.
“You left us. You let us think you were dead! You had ten years to explain, but you only came back now for money,” Grace said.
Laura flinched.
I crossed my arms. “I second what Grace said.”
Daniel spread his hands. “You don’t understand what things were like.”
