I pressed my lips together.

There was the fear. Not of losing money. Of losing Matthew. Because the money, for me, had never been a blessing but a new threat. Since the app started being worth millions, I slept less. I knew that money attracts the exact same thing as blood: sharks.

Lauren then turned to her son.

“Matthew, my love, I know all this is confusing for you. But I’m here now. I want to help you. I want to be in your life. You deserve to have your mother.”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t even look at her.

He just tilted his head a little, like when he listens to a piece of music and is searching for the flaw in the rhythm.

She thought it was shyness. She smiled with a fake tenderness that made me want to throw up.

“It was always hard to connect with him,” she said then, turning to the lawyers. “His condition…”

Matthew looked up.

He interrupted her with a calm, perfectly clear voice:

“Don’t call me a condition.”

Lauren froze.

So did I.

My grandson didn’t speak much when something upset him. As a child, an overload of emotions would shut him down like a closed door. But at sixteen, he had learned something else: when he decided to speak, every word landed exactly right.

“I don’t know you,” he continued, finally looking at her. “You are not my mom. You are the person who left.”

Lauren’s lawyer opened his mouth, perhaps to object to that tone, but the judge walked in right at that moment and we all had to stand up. She was a woman with short hair and a firm gaze, the kind who had seen every possible family theater and wasn’t easily impressed. We sat down. She skimmed the file and asked for a brief summary.

Lauren’s lawyer spoke first. He talked about biological ties, restored duties, opportunities for reconciliation, the need to protect a millionaire minor from inappropriate decisions. He even dared to say that I, due to my age and “limited economic profile,” might not be the ideal manager for a sum of that magnitude.

I looked down at my hands.

The same hands that had smelled of bleach for half a lifetime.

The hands with which I buttoned uniforms, counted coins, learned to navigate therapy forms, cooked white rice when Matthew only tolerated three textures. The hands that taught him to trust the world.

I didn’t say anything.

Our lawyer responded next with simple facts: sustained abandonment, absolute absence, zero financial contribution, actual guardianship exercised by me, the emotional stability of the minor, and the fact that the app had been developed by Matthew with external technical support under perfectly documented contracts.

The judge listened without interrupting.

Then she looked at Lauren.

“Ma’am, how long has it been since you lived with your son?”

“I’ve had sporadic contact…”

“I asked how long it has been since you lived with him.”