Jack was pulled back from the edge of death, but the consequences were permanent.
He suffered severe aftereffects; partial paralysis and slurred speech.
His mother brought him back to their hometown.
I visited him once.
In that rundown county hospital, he lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
The once confident, ambitious man had become someone who needed others to feed him and wipe him clean.
His mother sat by his bedside. The moment she saw me, she tried to lunge forward.
"You disaster! You ruined my son!"
I stepped aside easily, and she fell straight to the ground.
I crouched in front of her.
"If you hadn't said those things on the phone back then, my mother wouldn't have ended up in the ICU, and none of this would have happened to Jack. Your son's fate today… was sh
