My four mothers promised my father they would raise me as their own.

My four mothers promised my father they would raise me as their own. For sixteen years, they kept that promise, until William, the son of a man they once loved, came into our home. After that, every accusation he made became the truth, and I was treated like someone dangerous. On his birthday, when they decided I’d made him disappear, none of them asked where I had actually been…

I used to believe there was no safer place in the world than Gloria Yates’s house. Then, on William Carson’s birthday, I found myself begging the four women who had raised me to believe I hadn’t taken him anywhere. They looked at me the way people look at a locked door when they’re certain something terrible is hidden behind it.

I was sixteen. I’d grown up calling those women Mom, all four of them, and for most of my childhood they’d answered with affection. Yet by the time William went missing for a few hours, I had already lost my bedroom, my school, and the right to use that name. They were certain I’d hurt him before, despite my denials, and nothing I said that day changed their minds.

To explain how we got there, I have to explain my father, Isaac. He came from another world. That sounds impossible, and for a long time I only knew the part of his story my mothers wanted me to know: he’d arrived in their lives when they were struggling, helped them rebuild, and left me in their care when he went away. They spoke about him as though he were the one person who had seen the good in all of them.

Gloria ran a company whose name appeared on buildings throughout the city. Tessa Charleston was a famous actress, still recognized even when she wore sunglasses and tried to buy groceries unnoticed. Joanne Carey was a physician respected by people who traveled long distances to see her. Barbara Olson held a powerful military position. At school, children assumed I must have everything. For years they were nearly right.

Gloria bought whatever caught my interest. Tessa remembered the little things I liked and sent gifts between filming schedules. Barbara taught me to stand straight when I was frightened. Joanne let me sit near her while she talked about medicine, and she’d tell me why treating someone gently mattered as much as knowing how to treat them. I had no single mother I could point to. I had four, and I’d believed that meant four times the protection. On ordinary evenings we sometimes ate at the same table, telling stories about our days. I saved my funniest school stories for those dinners because I liked being the reason all four of them laughed.

They used to say Isaac asked them to treat me as their own child no matter who had given birth to me. I never doubted them. Dad had gone, but they had stayed. When I was very young, they took turns helping me with schoolwork or listening to whatever I’d been worried about. I learned their footsteps in the hall and the sounds of their voices when they were pleased with me.

Three years before that birthday, Gloria brought William home from abroad. He was the son of their first love, a man who had once betrayed their trust and left with money before moving overseas. Near the end of his life, he had apologized and asked Gloria to look after his boy. The four women said William had suffered enough and needed a family. I agreed. I knew what it was like to miss a father.

At first I showed William around the house, introduced him to people, and tried to make him comfortable. My mothers reminded me that he was younger and that I should be patient if he acted out. I thought patience meant letting him pick the game or have the larger slice of cake. I didn’t understand that I was being asked to accept blame for things I hadn’t done.

An injury appeared on William one afternoon, and he said I’d caused it. Another time he fell on the stairs and said I’d pushed him. I told my mothers I hadn’t touched him. Gloria said she’d expected better of me. Tessa looked away as though she couldn’t bear to hear an excuse. They did not ask me to describe what I’d seen. After enough incidents, even my silence was interpreted as guilt.

Then William was attacked by a group of young men in an alley. When they were caught, they claimed I had arranged it. I had not. I said so until my throat hurt, but my mothers accepted their story. They began speaking of me as someone who might harm William again. I was removed from school, cut off from friends, and put under humiliating restrictions inside a house that had once been mine, too.

I was made to live in a kennel rather than my room. Household staff who used to greet me kindly repeated the accusations, and ordinary meals became another way to remind me how little I mattered. I learned to lower my eyes when someone came in. The more frightened I became, the more my mothers described my fear as manipulation.

The worst part wasn’t losing expensive things. I stopped expecting those anyway. It was hearing one of them tell William to come sit close while I stood at the edge of the room, and realizing nobody intended to make space for me. I tried explaining that I hadn’t done what he said. Joanne, who once promised I’d always be her only son in her heart, stopped listening after another accusation involving a medical needle.

She had taught me basic medical knowledge. William later fainted, and a small mark was discovered on his head. He said I’d been responsible. Joanne took the accusation as proof I’d misused what she’d taught me. I begged her to examine what had really happened. She told me those skills were meant to help people, not hurt them. Afterward she avoided being alone with me.

Barbara enforced punishments that terrified me. Gloria controlled where I could go. Tessa, who could cry convincingly on a movie screen, seemed unable to see what was happening in front of her. I kept thinking that if I endured another day without arguing, one of them would remember the child she’d loved. But years passed, and the rules only grew harsher.

On William’s birthday, I was weak after being deprived of food and shut away. I heard a voice that sounded like a memory of my father. It introduced itself as the system that had once connected Isaac to our world. I thought hunger and exhaustion might be making me imagine it, but it answered questions I’d never asked aloud.

It said Isaac had come here because his own mother was dying. In his original world he had been a young university student buried under hospital expenses and family debt. His mission in this world offered a way to save her. He’d completed that mission, then returned home. He had believed leaving me with four capable women who loved me would give me a safer childhood than his struggling household could provide.

He hadn’t forgotten me, the voice said. He had built a modest life, stayed alone, and waited years for a way to bring me home. I asked why he hadn’t taken me with him. The system explained that his choice had been made in love, though it had gone terribly wrong. It spoke of a passage between worlds that could open when my life here ended. I was so desperate to see him that I failed to understand how dangerous my thinking had become.

I was in a crisis that day, and I harmed myself. Gloria found me and summoned help in time. For one moment I saw fear in her eyes and thought she’d finally recognized me. Then she accused me of trying to spoil William’s birthday with a performance. She told me not to call her Mom and said I could not even choose a place where my suffering wouldn’t trouble everyone else.

I left for the old home Isaac had once used, clutching his photograph. I made another desperate attempt to end my pain and was taken for emergency treatment. When I woke, Joanne was standing over me with the message I’d left behind. She was angry that I’d chosen Isaac’s former home, and she insisted I was trying to make them feel guilty. She had saved me, but she still wouldn’t listen to why I needed saving.

Gloria joined us. While they argued about whether I was acting, their phones chimed with William’s birthday message. I watched them soften at once, sending him affectionate replies while I lay nearby. It reminded me of the voices that once coaxed me through childhood fevers. I felt so far from them that I couldn’t imagine crossing the distance.

In my distress I made another unsafe move near a window. A tree outside broke my fall, and I was rescued again. Afterward I told Gloria and Joanne about Isaac’s system and my longing to be with him. They suspected I had hallucinated it. Joanne proposed that a psychologist assess me. She also said the four women had discussed ending my punishments if I promised never to appear in front of William again.

For a moment I thought that might mean I could leave. I asked them to let me go somewhere else, away from the house. But they’d refused that request before, claiming their promise to Isaac meant they had to keep me under their control. They believed protecting William required watching me. No explanation of my own distress seemed to alter that belief.

Then Tessa and Barbara arrived in a panic. William had left his birthday gathering after a classmate called, and nobody knew where he was. Three years earlier, on another birthday, a call had preceded the alley attack. I saw the memory pass between my mothers. Their faces changed as they turned toward me.

I told them I’d been under medical care and had no idea where William was. Gloria demanded to know where I’d taken him. Barbara stopped her from striking me where other people might see, then insisted we all return to the house. The trip back felt endless. I pleaded for someone to check with William’s friends before accusing me, but they were already making calls and arranging another punishment.

I had been afraid of that house for years. When the car arrived, I struggled to enter. Joanne said I could avoid trouble by telling them where William was. I had no answer to give because I hadn’t seen him. Men brought in on Barbara’s orders restrained and hurt me while my mothers demanded a confession. I stopped expecting them to believe the truth simply because I spoke it.

Then Gloria’s phone rang. William was eating with classmates. He was safe, cheerful, and confused about the fuss. The family butler confirmed he’d collected him. My mothers ordered the punishment stopped and hurried toward me, saying they’d been wrong this time. I heard their voices at a distance, but I no longer had strength to answer. As they called my name, another voice, quieter and familiar, returned.

CHAPTER 2

The system said the connection to my father’s world was ready. Before I left, it allowed me a final look at the room. Joanne was trying frantically to revive me. Gloria stood back, refusing to accept that I had stopped responding. Barbara searched for something practical to do. Tessa could hardly speak. Their authority and skill, which had once seemed large enough to protect anyone, could not undo what they’d permitted.

William appeared at the stairway with a small box of birthday cake. He asked whether I was causing trouble again, not yet understanding why nobody answered him. Barbara told him to be quiet. He looked startled; he’d grown accustomed to every room welcoming him. I wanted to tell him that the cake was no longer important, but I was already beyond the reach of words.

I didn’t stay to watch them any longer. The system spoke gently, explaining that Isaac was waiting and that the passage could not be reversed once completed. I asked whether Dad would recognize me. I was ashamed of how frightened I sounded. The voice said he had never stopped believing I was his son. When I agreed to leave, the room and everything in it faded from my sight.

I opened my eyes on a narrow bed under a clean cotton blanket. Sunlight moved across a plain wall, and the room smelled faintly of laundry soap. I touched my chest, startled that the old injuries and weakness were gone. Then a man appeared in the doorway carrying a bowl of soup. He wore a faded apron over a flannel shirt, and there were gray hairs at his temples.

He looked ordinary, almost impossibly ordinary after years of mansions and guarded gates. Yet I knew his eyes. “Dad?” I asked. His hands trembled as he set down the bowl. He said my name as though he’d been practicing it for sixteen years, then came close enough for me to reach him. I held on to his shirt and cried.

Isaac said he’d believed the women would keep their promise. He’d left because he thought his debts and uncertainty would make my life harder. He had waited for me in a small house, expecting that someday we’d have time together. He apologized for making a choice that had left me unprotected. I told him I didn’t need a grand house; I needed someone who would listen.

He didn’t ask me to prove what I’d endured. He sat beside me until I was ready to eat, then showed me where he kept extra blankets. He didn’t fill every silence with reassurance. When I flinched at an unexpected movement, he stopped and let me decide whether to come closer. That patience was something I hadn’t known I’d missed.

The system explained that the world I’d left would continue without me. I asked for no revenge and no return. There were things the women would have to face, and I couldn’t make myself responsible for their decisions anymore. Isaac asked whether I wanted to talk about them. I said not yet. He nodded, put the soup within reach, and stayed with me.

That evening we sat at a small kitchen table. He told me he had a job managing logistics and that the debts he’d once feared were paid. We wouldn’t be wealthy, he said, but there would be enough for groceries, warm clothes, and school when I was ready. I listened while he described bus routes, nearby shops, and a park where children played. The ordinary details sounded like promises I could understand. I asked what would happen if I made a mistake there, or disappointed him. Isaac considered the question, then said we would talk about it and work out what came next. I was not used to such a simple answer.

CHAPTER 3

For the first few days I slept with the door partly open. Isaac never mentioned it. He made breakfast in portions far larger than I could finish, then learned to put the rest away without urging me to eat. When he left for work, he told me where he’d be and when he’d return. If he was delayed, he called. He seemed to understand that promises about time mattered more to me than expensive gifts.

The system sometimes showed me brief scenes from the world I’d left, as if it were closing unfinished files before our connection disappeared. Two days after I was gone, the four women sat in Gloria’s house, unable to agree even on how to speak about me. William told them I had brought trouble on myself. Gloria turned on him. I couldn’t feel satisfaction; they had said similar things to me for years.

Barbara ordered a review of the allegations that had governed my life. Evidence emerged that William had paid the young men involved in the alley attack to accuse me. Messages and financial records showed he’d arranged the incident to win their sympathy and turn them against me. When they confronted him, he claimed I’d somehow planted the evidence. They no longer accepted the explanation without question.

Joanne found the medical notebook I’d kept while learning from her. It had gone missing around the time William accused me of hurting him with a needle. The relevant page had been marked, and the book was recovered from his room. I remembered searching for it and assuming I’d misplaced it. Joanne now understood how readily she’d treated knowledge of a technique as proof that I had used it.

William admitted that he’d wanted the affection and place in the family he’d believed belonged to me. He said he’d been afraid there would never be room for him if I remained loved. His fear didn’t excuse his choices, and it didn’t excuse the women who acted on his stories without finding out what happened. Barbara responded by confining him under the same cruel conditions they’d forced on me.

Even hearing that was painful. I knew what those rooms were like. I had no wish to see another child punished that way, however much he’d harmed me. The system’s glimpse ended before I could learn whether anyone stopped Barbara. I asked it not to show me the rooms again. I wanted my father and the life in front of us, not another view of the place I’d escaped.

The four women eventually returned to Isaac’s old apartment. There they found his system logbook, describing why he’d traveled to their world, how he’d cured his mother, and why he’d trusted them with me. An emergency passage had been arranged in case my survival became impossible. They realized the voice I’d described was real. They spoke of finding a way to reach us and apologizing. The system made clear that their wealth and influence couldn’t buy a route through dimensions.

I sat beside Isaac while that final glimpse faded. He was mending a loose button on my borrowed shirt with clumsy, determined stitches. I told him I wanted to try school, though I wasn’t sure I could stand being around people who already knew one another. He said we’d visit a few places, meet teachers, and decide together. There was no deadline except the one we made.

I began taking short walks along our street. At first I kept my head down when anyone greeted me. Slowly I learned the name of the neighbor who watered her plants every morning and the boy who practiced basketball behind the grocery store. Nothing extraordinary happened. I began to look forward to that.

CHAPTER 4

Five years passed. I went to school, made friends, and grew tall enough that Isaac complained I borrowed his coats without returning them. He still worked in logistics, and we still lived in the modest house with the squeaking kitchen cupboard. Sometimes he brought home a cheap dessert because it reminded him of something I’d said. I stopped wondering whether kindness came with a condition hidden inside it.

Once, when I was leaving for class, he asked whether I had packed lunch. I said yes, then checked my bag and discovered I hadn’t. He laughed, handed me an apple, and told me to buy a sandwich. I remember that more clearly than most birthdays from my old life. I could be forgetful without being accused of something terrible.

The system kept its promise to close the connection permanently, but before it did, it offered one last account of the people I’d left. Gloria had withdrawn from her company, given away much of her wealth, and lived alone with photographs she couldn’t bear to put away. Joanne had surrendered her prominent medical position and worked among children who couldn’t pay for treatment. Tessa had publicly admitted her part in my suffering and retreated from acting. Barbara stayed in uniform but requested a remote, dangerous posting, unable to make peace with what she’d ordered.

William remained confined in the abandoned family home, a punishment imposed by the adults who had once indulged him. The system told me no further account would follow. I felt sorry for the boy he’d become, even after all the damage he caused. I wished the women had learned something more useful from my suffering than how to repeat it. But I could not go back and make them better people.

They met one final time in Isaac’s old apartment when a pale light appeared. The system told them the connection would soon be cut. They pleaded to see me. They were shown a brief view of the university campus where I was walking with friends, wearing a denim jacket and carrying a backpack. I was laughing at something a classmate had said. I did not know they were watching.

Isaac pulled up near the campus gate that afternoon. He stepped out with two cups of hot cocoa, the sort he liked buying when the weather turned cold. I hurried toward him, took one cup, and hugged him before getting in. He asked whether my last class had gone well. I told him about a difficult assignment and a friend who’d helped me understand it.

Behind the fading connection, the women who raised me saw the car drive away. The system informed them that the passage would close and my memories of their world would no longer follow me. Their final request was to apologize. The answer remained no. There were no meetings to arrange and no promises left for them to make on my behalf.

I didn’t know what it meant to forget an entire childhood until I began noticing fewer memories interrupting my days. The details of the other world slipped away until those four familiar names no longer came to me when I woke. Isaac said there was no need to force myself to remember or forget. We could live the day in front of us.

At home he warmed leftover soup while I set out two bowls. I complained that he’d bought the wrong kind of bread again. He said it was the only kind on sale and asked me to put the cocoa cups in the sink. I did, then sat down while he brought dinner to the table. The cupboard squeaked when he opened it. Neither of us noticed for long.

THE END.
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