Nathan’s temper flared when he entered his upmarket restaurant and found a customer yelling at one of the servers.

“What’s going on here?” Nathan asked.

“She spilled coffee on my expensive suit.” The patron pointed at the waitress.

“It was an accident, sir.” The unusually mature waitress turned to Nathan, and he noted her nametag read ‘Catherine.’ “I tripped…”

Nathan apologized to the man, assured him his bill was on the house, and summoned his manager to ensure the patron received 5-star treatment.

“As for you…” Nathan rounded on Catherine. “…you’re coming to the office with me, right now!”

“You must be new,” Nathan said as he let Catherine into the office. “Seems I’ll have to remind my managers that this restaurant has a certain standard.”

“I-I was hired only two weeks ago,” Catherine admitted.

“Turns out having you around isn’t very nice. You’re fired, Catherine!” Nathan announced. “Come by tomorrow to collect your wages and termination letter!”

She looked up at him pleadingly. “But it was an accident! Please! Take today’s loss from my salary, but don’t fire me!”

Nathan shook his head.

“You’re what? 60? 65? As I said, we have standards here and old ladies who can’t watch their hands don’t fit our image. Get out of my restaurant, now!”

The next day, Nathan was about to sign Catherine’s termination letter when his attention was drawn to her last name.

“Wilkinson…” Catherine’s surname jogged Nathan’s memory. His birth mother had the same name.

His mother had abandoned him as a baby, but the woman who’d raised Nathan had told him her name when he turned 16. Was it possible the older woman he’d fired was his biological mother? Nathan had to know for sure.

He called his driver. “Mike, I need you to fetch someone in the limo and bring her to the restaurant. Beg her to return if you must! I’ll send you the details.”

He couldn’t focus on work now, so he reached to close the files on his desk. That’s when he noticed the envelope. Nathan tore it open and found a letter inside.

Dear Nathan,

This is the same Catherine you fired yesterday. I didn’t have the courage to say this before, but I am your birth mother. I left you with an old acquaintance when you were a baby because I was afraid that if you stayed with me, only troubles awaited you. I had to save you from the fate that later befell me and your late sister when we were arrested…”

“Late sister?” Nathan’s eyes widened in shock. He had no idea he had a sibling, let alone that his mother and sister were imprisoned.

“Today, I want to tell you what happened all those years ago and why I left you,” continued the letter. “Your father and I had just returned after pulling off our biggest heist…”

36 years ago…

Simon killed the car engine, and he and his wife, Catherine, exited the vehicle.

“I’ll get rid of the car at the scrap yard later,” Simon said as he opened the trunk. “It was probably seen.”

“I can’t believe we did it!” Catherine chirped as she eyed the bag of jewels. “This will solve all our problems!”

They gathered all the bags with their loot and marched into their cabin in the forest. Their 17-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, appeared in the living room, holding 8-month-old Nathan in her arms. She knew her parents robbed wealthy households, and she cared for Nathan while they were out.

“How did it go?” Elizabeth asked.

Catherine grinned at her daughter. “We got over $300,000 in cash and approximately $1 million in antiques and jewelry from that rich merchant.”

The family gathered at the kitchen table after Elizabeth put Nathan down to sleep. Elizabeth and Catherine were sorting through the loot when Simon broke the silence.

“Surprise!” He placed three passports on the table. “This is our gateway to a new life. Tomorrow, we’ll sell the antiques and jewelry to Christopher. A friend will help us cross the Mexican border, and my buddies will welcome us in Europe, where they’ve found the best course of treatment for Nathan…”

The primary reason the couple had resorted to stealing was to pay for Nathan’s cancer treatment. Simon worked at a sawmill before that, and Catherine was a homemaker. They had no other means to gather enough money to save Nathan’s life.

Nathan was Simon’s biological child, and he couldn’t let his blood suffer. Although Elizabeth was his stepdaughter, he cared for her too. The little family gathered into a joyous group hug.

When Simon went out to get rid of the car later, Catherine went to bed. The light streaming through the window woke her the next morning, only to discover that Simon’s side of the bed was perfectly made as if he’d never come home.

Catherine searched the cabin, but Simon wasn’t around. As she crossed the living room area, she noticed something that made her shudder: the cabinet where they’d put the loot and passports was unlocked, and the doors were ajar.

A wave of dread swept over her. Her heart sank when she saw the loot was gone. Simon’s passport was gone, too. Catherine collapsed to the floor. He’d obviously fled the country with the loot, leaving their family in misery.

She couldn’t afford Nathan’s treatment now or escape if the police tracked her down. She was trapped with a sick son and a young daughter. As she broke into sobs, a hand firmly grasped her shoulder. She turned as Elizabeth kneeled beside her and told her daughter everything.

Elizabeth pulled her close, comforting her. “I’ll help you in the next robbery,” she offered. “I can—”

“No!” Catherine snapped. “My children will not become robbers!”

“We have no choice!” Elizabeth retorted. “How do you think this ends? Are we going to stop and wait for the police to find us, which will happen sooner or later, and let my brother die?”

That’s when it hit Catherine. She actually didn’t have a way out of the situation. She couldn’t pull off a robbery by herself, and she was desperate for money. She agreed to let Elizabeth help her and fetched the list of potential targets she and Simon had made.

There was a house in a wealthy district that was recently affected by an accidental leak from a chemical factory. The leak had polluted the water supply pipelines, and a decontamination effort was underway. Catherine briefly explained the plan for the robbery.

“The equipment we need is still in the garage.” Elizabeth checked the clock. “The workers will start arriving soon. Let’s go.”

On their way to the wealthy suburb, Elizabeth stopped by her old acquaintance and neighbor, Alice. Alice agreed to take care of Nathan.

An hour later, Elizabeth and Catherine arrived at the target house and rang the doorbell. Moments later, they were greeted by an older woman. Since Catherine and Elizabeth were wearing protective suits and masks, the woman readily accepted their story about working in the decontamination effort.

The woman showed them where the pipes were and then agreed to wait outside while they worked. Catherine and Elizabeth quickly gathered all the valuables and dumped them into their bags. Catherine found a safe in one of the bedrooms. She used her lock-picking tools to open it and took the thick wads of cash she found inside it.

About 20 minutes later, mother and daughter climbed into the car and removed their masks. Their excitement about pulling off a successful robbery was cut short when a man rose from the back seat and pressed a cloth soaked in chloroform against their noses.

When they awoke, the women quickly realized they were tied up and trapped in their basement at home.

“I knew you’d go for that house! Excellent work, as usual, Catherine!” Simon crowed. “You must’ve thought I would have left the country by now! Well, I was just waiting for you to finish the job…”

As Simon continued his speech, Catherine reached for the small blade hidden in her bracelet. Slowly, without any sudden movements that would alert Simon, she cut through the thick rope and freed her hands.

“…but now there’s no need to keep you alive, Catherine,” Simon finished, pulling out his gun.

Simon approached her with the loaded weapon. As he got closer, Catherine tackled him. A gunshot rang out, and Simon thudded to the floor. He passed out as the blood oozed rapidly from his belly. Catherine glanced at Elizabeth. If the gun had been pointed at her when it fired, she would’ve lost her daughter forever.

Catherine and Elizabeth took their loot and fled. On the way, Catherine dialed Christopher, the antique store owner to whom they regularly sold all the looted antiques and jewels, and arranged to meet him at his store. As she hung up, she swerved onto the road to Alice’s house to pick up Nathan.

“We are unstoppable!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Who’s our next target?”

“We’re never doing this again, Eliza!” Catherine screamed.

When they arrived at Alice’s house, Catherine couldn’t bring herself to leave the car. Her chest ached, and her stomach churned with a terrible uneasiness. She didn’t want to do this, but she had to. It was for the best.

“Mother, are-are you OK?” Elizabeth asked timidly.

“We’re leaving Nathan with Alice,” Catherine said.

She exited the car and knocked on Alice’s door multiple times before it opened. Alice stepped out.

Present-day…

“…Alice agreed to accept you as her own, and I was glad,” continued the letter. “At least one of my children was saved from a life of crime and…death. I left Alice almost everything I had so she could pay for your treatment. Elizabeth and I headed for Mexico, but the cops caught us.

I received 30 years of imprisonment, and Elizabeth…she could’ve served 5 years and left the dark life of crime. Instead, she continued to steal when she got out. She was caught again and died in prison 22 years later.

I left you for your own good, Nathan. I wanted to shield you from the dark life I’d lived. I didn’t want you to become like us or put your life in danger like I did with Elizabeth. Forgive me for not being a good mother.

— Catherine”

Nathan leaned back in his chair, his heart heavy from reading the letter. Right then, there was a knock on the door. He leaped to his feet when his mother entered the office and hugged her tightly.

“You did the right thing,” he whispered as they stood there. “You did what any mother would do for her child.”

Then Nathan got down onto his knees. “Please, don’t leave me again… Mom.”

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If you enjoyed this story, then you might like this one about a man who is fired for breaking the rules to deliver food to a disabled woman, only to discover her picture on his former boss’s desk when he arrives to collect his severance pay.

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