This wasn’t ordinary sobbing — it was the sound of a woman whose entire world had collapsed in a single moment.

“Dorothy… the children…” she gasped. “They took them away… the ambulance… the police… I don’t understand what’s happening…”

Everything around me seemed to freeze. I slowly lowered myself into a chair as a wave of icy fear ran down my spine.
“Laura, what happened?” I asked, even though deep inside I already knew something terrible had occurred.

Her sentences were broken, drowned in tears. From the fragments, the truth emerged: less than an hour after the children had eaten the chocolates, the younger one began vomiting violently and then went into convulsions. The older child lost consciousness. Doctors arrived quickly, but they immediately called the police as well. The chocolate… the chocolate had been poisoned.

I don’t remember how I got to the hospital. All I recall is the sharp smell of disinfectant, the blinding lights, and the doctor’s expression — heavy, final.
“Are you the children’s grandmother?” he asked softly.
I nodded.
“We need to talk.”

In his office, I was told that an extremely powerful toxic substance had been found in the chocolates. The dose had been calculated precisely… for an adult. One single person.

“For one person?” I whispered.
“Yes,” the doctor replied. “For a child, it would have been fatal.”

That same evening, my son Thomas was arrested. He didn’t run. He didn’t argue. He sat in the hospital corridor with his head lowered, looking as if he had aged ten years in a single day. When he saw me, there was no remorse in his eyes. Only fear — raw, animal fear of being exposed.

“Why?” I asked. It was the only word I could manage.

He stayed silent for a long time. Then he said quietly,
“You were supposed to eat them.”

The truth surfaced quickly. Debts, loans, failed investments, secret obligations. Thomas knew that after my death, he would inherit the house and receive the insurance money. The chocolates were the perfect plan: a “natural” death, old age, a weak heart… no one would ever suspect a son.

But he had forgotten one thing.
My lifelong maternal instinct — the habit of always giving the best to the children.

As the investigator read the report, I stared at my hands and thought about how many years I had held them over that child’s cradle. How I had tried to teach him kindness. How I had believed that love could prevent evil.

The children survived. The doctors called it a miracle.
And I… I survived my own death sentence.

Now I live alone in the house my son wanted to claim at the cost of my life. Every day I pass the kitchen table and see the empty box of chocolates. It is a silent reminder that the greatest evil doesn’t always hide in darkness — sometimes it comes wrapped in velvet, tied with a ribbon.

And if he hadn’t called me that morning…
I wouldn’t be here today.