This is not an easy story for me to tell, but it has to be told. It began with something so simple... a visit. A man came to see my mother. He wasn’t my friend... I made that clear. He was hers. To me, he was nothing but trouble, someone whose presence I never welcomed. I didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to speak to him but somehow his shadow kept finding its way into my life. That evening, my mother returned from a trip. Not long after, this man came by to greet her. They spoke like old friends, catching up as though nothing in the world was wrong. Then my mother turned to me with a request that still burns in my chest: she asked me to escort him. I told her it wasn’t far, that he could go on his own. But she insisted and against my better judgment, I went.