Reborn: Getting Back My Real Son Chapter 10

Reborn: Getting Back My Real Son Chapter 10

Soon after Axel started college, Nate and I moved to a new city and began a new chapter in our lives.

To make our retirement years more comfortable, we agreed to buy a villa in the suburbs. After more than a decade of hard work, purchasing a villa barely caused us any pressure.

In this new city, without Axel nearby, Nate and I finally stopped holding back and threw ourselves into our careers with complete freedom.

Another five years passed.

During those five years, I rose to the highest position in my field, reaching the peak of my career. Nate retired early, happily embracing his peaceful life with nothing more than a fishing rod in hand.

More than once during that time, we considered laying out an easier path for Axel-opening doors, arranging connections, paving shortcuts.

But to our surprise and delight, he was nothing like the Phillip from my previous life. Without relying on us at all, Axel and a group of exceptional classmates founded a studio while still in college. With strong design work and persuasive presentations, they convinced major corporate investors to back them-without using a single cent of the money Nate and I had set aside for him.

With that, the last of our worries disappeared. We settled into our large villa, relaxed and carefree, planning to take some vacation days and travel abroad together.

Before we left, I went to the cleaning service company to hire someone to tidy up the villa―and unexpectedly ran into Judy, whom I hadn’t seen in years.

The story went that back then, Phillip insisted on studying abroad. Overconfident, he assumed he could land a high -paying part-time job overseas that would support his living expenses.

But within a year, he’d burned through his savings and crept back home in embarrassment.

In my previous life, he had spent money lavishly overseas and had enjoyed all the connections Nate and I arranged for him. He never had to think about finances.

This time, he went alone, without support and without a decent job. He quickly found himself struggling just to get by.

Without a degree to show for it, he returned home and tried to start a business. The moment he actually began, he collapsed under the pressure. After all, in my last life, Nate and I had handled everything behind the scenes. He enjoyed the results without ever experiencing the hardship that came first.

This time, he rushed blindly from one idea to another. His investments failed one after another, wiping out the savings Judy had built over more than a decade-and leaving behind almost a million in debt.

Judy was forced to sell her home. She even pushed our parents to sell their retirement apartment just to gather enough money to cover Phillip’s debts.

By then, Ronald had long prepared the divorce papers. The moment the debt surfaced, he signed them and disappeared with his mistress.

After his entrepreneurial failure, Phillip fell apart. He stayed home all day, officially becoming a shut-in. Judy now had to find a way to support herself and her good-for-nothing son.

But she had been out of the workforce for too long and was completely disconnected from society. She could only

get the hardest, most exhausting physical labor jobs. She juggled several of them each week, working herself half to death-yet received no understanding from Phillip at all.

Now, all he did was hole up at home, finding fleeting satisfaction in video games and the internet. Even then, he remained full of complaints.

“If it weren’t for you, I’d already be the CEO of some big company.

“You’re not worthy of being my mother. My mother should be someone like Cindy!

“You’re useless! You can’t even make enough money for me to order takeout!”

Phillip was a grown man in his twenties, yet he hit and yelled at Judy whenever he felt like it, never treating her as his mother.

So when she saw me sitting in the reception area wearing elegant, comfortable clothes while waiting for the manager, she finally broke.

“In this life, after everything I’ve suffered, I should be the one living in a villa and traveling the world!”

How pathetic. Even now, she was still obsessed with that. She never realized the truth-that she had created the very suffering she drowned in.

The manager shot me an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry. Judy hasn’t completed her onboarding yet. Please don’t mind her behavior.”

With a wave of her hand, several burly security guards dragged Judy away.

The manager turned back to me with a polite, embarrassed smile. I only nodded slightly and replied, my tone carrying a quiet hint of meaning.

“If I were you, Ms. Kensington, I wouldn’t hire such an emotionally unstable cleaner.”

She was no fool. She understood exactly what I meant. Smiling knowingly, she turned and whispered instructions to a girl from HR.

Once we settled the arrangements for cleaning the villa, I stretched my arms and rubbed my wrist.

My son was wonderful in every way-except his taste.

The big gold bracelet he bought me was rather gaudy and so heavy it dragged on my wrist.

Oh well. His taste might not improve, but when we’re on holiday abroad, I’ll have Nate buy me another one.