He Chose Her Son

Three days until the Whitfield Scholarship exam. Out of nowhere, a neighbor from our old street called to ask how much the villa had sold for. "The way that mother and son throw money around, it must have gone for a fortune." I had no idea what she was talking about. The villa was the wedding gift my mother gave me. I would never have sold it. Three years ago, my son had just won a place at the best public high school in the city. My husband said Noah was coddled and had no idea how ordinary people lived. To break him of it, we moved out of the villa and into a cramped, aging walk-up. Three years of high school. I lived that lean life beside him, buying marked-down produce. Noah traded his phone for a cheap flip phone, and he grew quieter every year. He stopped asking for spending money, and he never dared ask for a review course. He worked through his textbooks and borrowed practice books from the boy at the next desk. I asked my husband whether we were being too hard on him. "Anyone destined for greatness can survive a little hardship," Daniel said. Then my neighbor sent me the photographs. My son had gone without for three years, treating one exam as the only road out. The son of Daniel's childhood sweetheart was living in the villa my family gave me, attending an elite prep school, dressed head to toe in designer labels. He would not even have to sit the exam. A large enough donation was buying him a place at a school overseas. Furious, I pulled every transfer my husband had made. I was going to find out exactly who had been spending the money my son went without for three years.