The boy returned home to celebrate Thanksgiving with his mother, but found out that she was not his biological mother.
Emma Stevens was alarmed. It was Thanksgiving and the 41-year-old woman was waiting for her son Ian. She would get up at dawn to prepare her son’s favourite dishes.
The buffet she planned to set up for him included turkey, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. He had loved this pie ever since she first made it for him, and she had never stopped serving it since.
When Ian arrived, Emma hugged him and then sat him down at the dining table, already laden with all the delicacies she had lovingly prepared.
“Is all this for me?” – Ian asked, slightly surprised.
He knew she would be waiting for him with his favourite dishes prepared. It was a tradition she had made when he first left home for university. “Of course, honey, you know it is,” she said proudly, well aware of its importance.
While Ian devoured the dish like a hungry soldier, Emma watched his actions. She had no appetite. Her thoughts were on the bomb she was about to drop on her lovely son.
“Do you remember Aunt Violet?” – Emma began, “When you were five years old, she came to our house and stayed for a few days and gave you a teddy bear.”
“Why are you talking about this now, Mum?”, Ian asked his mother. However, she kept talking.
“You’ve been sleeping with that teddy bear for years… Anyway, she recently wrote to me saying she was very seriously ill and would like to see you again.”
This is news to Ian. His Aunt Violet was an unusual woman who always cried when he was near her.
The day he first met her he still remembered vividly. It was at the wedding of a family friend. The whole family was there, including Aunt Violet.
When she saw him that day, her eyes immediately began to overflow with tears. She hugged him like a mother and called him affectionate names that gave him amazing pleasure.
After that wedding, he never saw her again, and his mother did not want to answer the questions he asked about her. “Why are you so interested in your aunt?” – his mother told him whenever he asked.
But now his mother was urging him to go and see her because she had asked. To say Ian was surprised was an understatement.
“Why is a woman I’ve only seen once in my life so desperate to see me?” – he asked his mother, who was looking anywhere but at him. “Why are you suddenly asking me to go to the very woman you’ve been keeping me away from all this time?”
When she stopped looking around and shifted her gaze to him, he saw tears in her eyes.
“The truth is, my son, I am not your mother. Violet is your birth mother.”
Ian was stunned. He immediately understood why she burst into tears when she saw him. “Tell me more,” he insisted.
“She gave birth to you by a man who abandoned her to avoid the responsibility of paternity. When you came into the world, she had no money, then she got a job in Alaska.
“Violet loved you so much she didn’t want to send you to an orphanage, so she brought you to my house. We were friends then, and she asked me to take you and…”
“At first I didn’t agree because I thought she was trying to run away from her responsibilities. But then she threatened to leave you on the street… or do something worse, so I agreed.”
“Mum,” Ian said, but Emma went on, not wanting to stop as she had already started.
“You were a little boy. My husband was against me raising someone else’s child, but I chose you anyway. Now I want you to go to Violet and be with her.”
Ian was shocked at his mother’s words. She wanted him to leave at once, but he told her he wanted to think about it. “This is a lot for me, Mum,” he said apologetically.
When he returned to his room, he saw the old teddy bear, and all night he tossed and turned.
In the morning he took his mother with him and they both flew to Alaska to meet Violet. She froze when she opened the door and saw her grown son looking into her eyes, holding a teddy bear in his hands. Then he took her hand in his and said:
“Mother, I don’t blame you. Emma raised me, but it was you who gave birth to me. She also told me what happened, and I’m here to tell you that I understand why you did what you did.”
Ian felt his shirt get dirty as Violet cried in his arms, but he didn’t stop talking. “Your choice paid off in the end because Emma gave me all the love I could ever want. You had no choice either, so I forgive you and hope you will accept me as your son.”
Violet cried even harder as they stood on her porch. But later they went inside and she prepared their favourite dishes – turkey and pumpkin pie.
