A Call from Three Years Ago

My three-year-old son died of medical neglect that never should have happened.

My husband let his mistress replace my son's real treatment with some unproven remedy. Then he forged a psychiatric evaluation, took away my custody, and threw me out of my own home.

On the day we buried my son, I got a video call from three years in the past.

The man from three years ago couldn't wait to be a father. The man from today pointed in my face and called me a liar faking madness.

I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene. I just gathered the evidence, piece by piece.

The man in this timeline was rotten to the core. So I would turn to the one who still wanted to save me: the man he used to be.

Chapter 1

The memorial hall was full of white lilies. Their scent was cold.

On my phone screen was Jared. Jared from three years ago.

He was holding the positive pregnancy test and grinning like a fool.

"Aurelia, it's a boy, isn't it? I bet he has your eyes."

Something impossible was happening. Under the shock, I felt a small, stubborn flicker of hope.

Before I could say anything, someone kicked open the heavy oak doors of the hall.

Present-day Jared strode in and ripped the white drapes off the altar. Flowers and candles tumbled to the floor.

"Are you out of your mind?" He stopped in front of me and pointed at the wreckage. "You'd stage a fake funeral for your own son just to frame Chloe?"

I ignored him and slowly turned my phone's camera toward the altar. On it sat a very small walnut coffin.

"It's a boy. He looks like me." I said it to the man on the screen. Then I looked up at the man standing in front of me. "But he's dead."

The Jared on the screen went white.

The Jared in front of me stared at his three-years-younger self on my phone. For a second he just stood there. Then he laughed.

He snatched the phone out of my hand and hurled it against the wall.

"Three months in the psych ward and now you're hallucinating? An AI-generated video? Do you think I'm an idiot?"

He tugged at his tie and looked at me like I was something filthy. "I don't care what game you're playing today. Chloe hasn't slept in three days because of the lies you've spread about her.

You're going to go out there right now, tell the press you made it all up, and apologize to her."

I looked at him, and my stomach turned over and over.

His mistress had destroyed my family and killed my child, and he wanted me to apologize to her.

When I didn't answer, Jared lost patience. He jerked his chin at the bodyguards behind him.

They shoved me into a car and drove me back to the house where, just thinking about it, I couldn't breathe.

The moment I walked into the living room, Chloe came toward me holding a glass. Inside was a thick, dark-green sludge that smelled nauseating.

"Aurelia, you've been through so much." She held out the glass with big, pitiful eyes. "I just made this drink. It's good for you."

She glanced past me and frowned. "Where's Leo? Why didn't you bring him home when you got out? He's been off his herbal supplements for days now. If he doesn't start taking them again, all the detox we did will go to waste."

My head rang like a struck bell. I knocked the glass out of her hand.

My Leo was autistic, but other than that, he had always been perfectly healthy.

But Chloe had to play the savior. She'd picked up a handful of remedies from some book with no science behind it, and every day she forced my son to drink plant extracts she mixed herself, things the FDA had never approved.

My three-year-old son died of acute liver and kidney failure, in a hospital emergency room.

The glass shattered on the floor. Green liquid splashed all over Chloe.

She shrieked and jumped back.

Jared didn't even think. He grabbed me by the collar and threw me to the floor.

My back slammed into the sharp corner of the coffee table. For a moment, everything went black.

But I gritted my teeth and looked up at him. "Jared, don't you know? It was Chloe's medicine that killed Leo."

Jared paused.

I held my breath and searched his face for even the smallest sign of grief.

He just looked down at me, his voice flat. "A burden who was broken from birth. If he's dead, maybe it's a mercy."

In that moment, I heard something inside my chest break.

I started to laugh.

I'd actually still believed in this man. I'd thought he had at least some humanity left.

Jared wrapped his arm around a trembling Chloe and took her upstairs. I sat in the broken glass and felt around for my phone where it had landed.

The screen was cracked, but the video call was still going.

Three-years-ago Jared's eyes were red, his jaw clenched tight. "Aurelia... how did this happen? How did it end up like this?"