The judge had bought it entirely. They took Leo. They gave Richard sole physical and legal custody, leaving me with nothing but heavily monitored, infrequent visitation that Richard’s lawyers eventually choked out of existence by moving him out of state.
I had spent thousands in legal fees trying to fight back, emptying my savings, breaking my own heart over and over again. The last I heard, Richard and his new, much younger wife had moved to Europe, supposedly giving Leo a life of private tutors and unimaginable luxury.
Yet here he was. Five years later. Sitting on my exam table, entirely unrecognizable beneath layers of mud, trying to buy medical care with recycled trash.
“Leo?” the name tore out of my throat, barely more than a whisper.
He flinched, his eyes going wide. He was so young when they took him that I hadn’t expected him to remember me, but something in his face shifted. A vague, blurry recognition. He shrank back slightly. “How do you know my name?”
Tears were streaming down my face. I couldn’t stop them. I stepped forward and pulled him into a desperate, crushing hug, burying my face in his wet hair. He went rigid at first, completely unsure of what was happening, but as I sobbed, holding him like I was terrified he would vanish into thin air, his small arms slowly came up to wrap around my neck.
“I’m your mom, baby,” I cried, pulling back just enough to look at him. “It’s me. It’s Mommy.”
He stared at me, his bottom lip quivering. “Mom?”
I nodded frantically, wiping my face. “Yes. Yes, baby. But what are you doing here? Where is your dad? Where is Eleanor?”
At the mention of his stepmother’s name, Leo’s face immediately darkened with a mixture of fear and profound sadness. He looked down at his lap.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to switch back into medical mode. I needed to see his leg, and I needed to know the truth. I gently rolled up the wet fabric of his jeans. His shin was badly bruised, the ankle swollen and angry purple. It looked like a severe sprain, possibly a minor fracture from a fall. I started wrapping it with an ice pack and an elastic bandage, keeping my hands steady while my mind raced.
“Leo, please,” I said softly as I worked. “Tell me what happened.”
The story that poured out of my ten-year-old son made my blood run absolutely cold. The lavish life Richard had boasted about in court was a complete facade. His family’s company had been secretly hemorrhaging money for years due to massive fraud. Two years ago, the empire collapsed. Richard was indicted, but rather than face federal prison, he fled the country, leaving Eleanor and Leo behind in a rented house.
