When my 7-year-old son went missing at the mall, I was devastated and crying. A blonde woman approached and comforted me. Hours later, he was found. Ten years later, as I shared the story with a friend, I mentioned the kind stranger.
To my surprise, my son suddenly went pale. He looked at me and said, “Sweet? Mom, that’s not how it went. That woman wasn’t helping me; she was the one who took me. She and a man put me in their car and argued for a while. She came back to distract you, but it was her boyfriend who decided to let me go.”
I was stunned. All these years, my son had kept the truth from me, trying to protect me from more pain. That moment completely changed how I saw that day—and the woman who had seemed so kind.
