My Ex-husband Threw Us Out During A Storm Because Our Son Was A “defective Product.” 18 Years Later, He Crawled Into My Son’s Hospital Begging For His Life. Who Is The “defective” One Now?
Public Justice
The elevator descended at a moderate speed, taking us back to the ground floor. I stood beside Leo. My son’s face was still tense, his jaw set, but his eyes were much calmer than before.
Behind us, two other security guards stood ready. Even though Mark and Bella had already been taken down by the first security team, we were prepared.
“Are you ready for the circus downstairs?” I asked quietly.
Leo nodded firmly.
“I’ve been ready for 18 years, Mom. Today we end it all. I don’t want any ghosts of the past haunting us anymore.”
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. The sound of a commotion immediately hit our ears. The normally quiet hospital lobby had turned into a chaotic scene.
A crowd had formed a circle in the middle of the room. Mark’s screams echoed off the luxurious marble walls.
“Help! Help me! There’s a crazy doctor in here!” Mark yelled.
Leo and I stepped out. We didn’t approach immediately. We stood on the steps leading down to the lobby, observing the drama Mark was orchestrating.
Mark was lying on the floor, refusing to be dragged out by security. He was thrashing around like a madman. Bella stood at a distance, looking embarrassed and confused, clutching her handbag as if afraid it would be stolen.
Hospital visitors, patients, their families, and staff were all watching with curiosity. Some people had even taken out their phones to record the incident.
“Listen everyone!” Mark shouted, pointing toward the elevator, right at us. “The doctors in this hospital have no heart! He’s my biological son! I’m critically ill! I need help but he’s throwing his own father out! Where is the justice? Where is the doctor’s oath?”
Whispers began to spread through the crowd. A few older women looked at Mark with pity. After all, seeing a sick old man lying on the floor naturally evoked sympathy.
Mark knew that he was playing his last card: Public manipulation.
“Ungrateful child!” Mark continued, crocodile tears streaming down his face. “I raised him through hardship! I worked my fingers to the bone for him! Now he’s successful and he’s forgotten his own parents! He’s ashamed to have a poor sick father!”
My blood boiled at his lies. He twisted the facts so smoothly. I was about to step forward to shut him up, but Leo’s hand stopped me.
“Let me handle this, Mom,” Leo said. “This is my stage.”
Leo walked down the steps. His steps were calm and dignified. His white coat fluttered slightly as he walked through the crowd.
People immediately moved aside to let him pass. Leo’s aura of leadership and charisma was powerful, a stark contrast to the dirty, hysterical Mark on the floor. Leo stopped right in front of Mark. He stood tall, looking down at him.
“Stop the theatrics, Mr. Peterson,” Leo’s voice was calm but carried clearly throughout the suddenly silent lobby.
Mark looked up. He saw the phone cameras pointed at him. He felt emboldened.
“See, there he is,” Mark yelled to the crowd. “This is my son, Dr. Leo. Look how arrogantly he stands there while his father grovels on the floor. Aren’t you afraid of being cursed?”
“Huh?” The crowd grew restless. Some started to jeer at Leo. “Wow, that doctor is terrible.” “Kicking out his own father.” “You should be ashamed, Doc.”
Leo remained unshaken. He raised a hand asking for quiet. Miraculously, the crowd fell silent, waiting for his explanation.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Leo spoke loudly and respectfully. “This man claims to be my father. It’s true. Biologically he contributed his sperm. But let me tell you what he did 18 years ago.”
Mark tried to interrupt.
“Don’t listen to him! He’s a liar!”
“Silence!” I barked from behind, my voice echoing. “Let my son speak!”
Leo pointed to his own leg.
“You see me standing tall? My leg wasn’t always like this. I was born with a congenital defect. My right leg was twisted. I couldn’t walk normally.”
Leo stared sharply into Mark’s eyes.
“18 years ago, during a thunderstorm, this man came home. He threw divorce papers in my mother’s face. He said he was disgusted to have a disabled child. He said he was ashamed in front of his friends. He said I was a defective product. And that very night, he threw my mother and me out of our home without a cent, without a change of clothes, in the middle of a torrential downpour.”
The atmosphere in the lobby became tense. The people who had been jeering were now silent, their gazes shifting toward Mark.
“I had a high fever that night,” Leo continued, his voice beginning to tremble with emotion. “My mother carried me to a bus shelter because we had nowhere else to go. Meanwhile, this man, he brought another woman into our home.”
“That woman!” Leo pointed at Bella, who was trying to sneak away through the crowd. “Stop that woman!”
I shouted. Two security guards immediately blocked Bella’s path. Bella shrieked hysterically.
“It’s not my problem! I don’t know anything! Let me go!”
“That woman was his mistress,” Leo said. “They lived a life of luxury built on our suffering. For 18 years this man never once looked for me. He never sent a single dollar for my food. My mother worked as a janitor to pay for my leg surgery. My mother was the one who fought for me alone.”
Leo looked down at Mark, whose face was now ashen.
“And now, when his fortune has been squandered by that woman, when his kidneys have failed because of his own lifestyle, he comes here. He’s asking me, the child he called trash and defective, to pay for his treatment for free. He’s asking me to forget 18 years of emotional torment.”
Leo turned to the crowd.
“Is that fair? Am I an ungrateful son if I refuse to help the person who tried to destroy my future?”
“No!” someone shouted from the crowd.
I turned. It was Mr. Henderson, the superintendent from our old apartment building. What an incredible coincidence. Or perhaps it was fate. He was there holding a prescription bag.
The old man stepped forward, his face red with anger.
“I’m a living witness!” Mr. Henderson said loudly, pointing at Mark. “I remember you, Mark Peterson. You’re the one who threw Eleanor out that night. I’m the one who found them shivering in the bus shelter the next morning. I’m the one who helped them find a tiny new apartment. The whole building hated you for what you did!”
Mr. Henderson’s testimony was the final nail in the coffin of Mark’s reputation. The crowd immediately turned on him. The pity had transformed into fury.
“You shameless old man!” “You’re old and you’re still evil!” “Throw him out!” “Don’t dirty this hospital!”
The insults rained down. Someone threw an empty water bottle, hitting Mark on the head. Mark covered his head with his hands, cowering like a cornered rat.
Bella, seeing the situation escalating, tried to escape again.
“Mark, I’m leaving! You’re on your own!”
Mark heard her and panicked.
“Belle, don’t leave me! You have my money, Belle!”
Mark tried to crawl after Bella. He grabbed her leg, causing her to fall. They wrestled on the lobby floor. A truly disgraceful sight, scratching and cursing at each other.
“Give me back my money, you thief!” Mark screamed.
“Your money was spent on your gambling too, you old fossil!” Bella retorted, pulling Mark’s hair.
I watched them with a sense of emptiness. They were once terrifying giants to me. Now they were just two pathetic people destroying each other. There was no more fear, no more heartache, only disgust.
“Secure them,” Leo ordered the head of security. “Turn the woman over to the police for the asset fraud we’re investigating, and get the man off hospital property as far away as possible.”
Four guards moved swiftly. They separated Mark and Bella. Bella was dragged toward the hospital’s police post, crying hysterically. Mark was lifted up and carried toward the exit.
“Leo! Eleanor, don’t do this!” Mark’s howls grew more distant. “I’m sick! My leg hurts! Mercy!”
His voice disappeared as the automatic glass doors slid shut. The lobby fell silent for a moment before the sound of applause erupted. One person clapped, then another, until the entire lobby was filled with thunderous applause.
They weren’t clapping for cruelty, but because justice had been served. They were clapping for a son who had successfully defended his mother.
Leo didn’t smile. He just nodded respectfully to Mr. Henderson and the people around him. He turned and looked at me, his eyes wet.
I opened my arms. Leo rushed into my embrace in the middle of that lobby. He cried on my shoulder, not a cry of sadness, but of release. The mountain of weight he had carried since he was 5 years old had finally crumbled today.
“You did so well, son,” I whispered. “You were amazing.”
“We won, Mom,” he sobbed softly. “We really won.”
I stroked his strong back.
“Yes, we won. Not because we were rich, not because we had positions of power. We won because we held on to the truth even when the world tried to crush us.”
