Blurb：
Eight-year-old Jake died from a severe cherry allergy after his cruel father forced him to eat a cake made by his mistress Vanessa. Now a ghost, Jake watches his grieving mother prepare for divorce while his unremorseful dad returns home blaming everyone but himself. Trapped between worlds, Jake discovers the haunting truth about his death and the family secrets that led to this tragedy. Can his spirit find peace—or revenge? A gripping supernatural thriller about betrayal, loss, and the unbreakable bond between mother and son. Keywords: cherry allergy, ghost child, parental betrayal, Vanessa the mistress, divorce papers, haunting aftermath.
Content：
My dad was cheating on my mom with another woman!
On my 8th birthday, he lied to Mom and took me to a party organized by his mistress, Vanessa.
I bit into the slice of cake Vanessa handed to me and found maraschino cherries in the layers.
I’m severely allergic to cherries! I spat out the cake immediately.
When I first tried a cherry at six, I broke out in hives all over, my throat swelling shut—I almost died!
So, even as a little kid, I knew how dangerous they were.
Vanessa looked hurt.
“I’m so disappointed, Jake. I made this special cake just for you, and you won’t even try a bite?”
Hearing that, Dad grabbed me by the neck, shoved that cherry cake into my mouth, and forced me to swallow it!
Then, before I could explain, he dragged me out and made me stand in the blazing hot backyard.
He locked the door behind him.
Mom had warned me the heatwave was brutal, hitting 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and that I should stay inside.
Turns out she was right… it was scorching!
And I started feeling itchy. It was getting hard for me to breathe.
I banged on the door, but Dad wouldn’t open it!
He even pulled the curtains shut so no one could see me out there.
…
Mom finally found me with the GPS on my smartwatch.
I was already passed out on the ground. My skin was covered in angry red hives.
Yet Dad just complained in front of Mom,
“This is your fault! You’ve spoiled him rotten!”
“Someone gives him a cake, and he spits it out!”
“So ungrateful, just like you…”
Mom slapped Dad across the face, scooped me up, and ran for the hospital.
But I died before we got there.
My soul slowly drifted out of my little body, floating in the air.
Turns out this is what dying feels like.
Was this what happened to old Mr. Garrison next door when he died last year? Was he floating around too?
I didn’t see Mr. Garrison then… did that mean Mom couldn’t see me?
But I could see them.
I saw Mom call 911.
I saw her holding me, crying so hard she collapsed on the sidewalk, waiting desperately for the ambulance.
She was begging God, and then the doctors, to save me.
The doctor just shook his head looking at my EKG monitor—a flatline.
Mom was all alone, running around for me… finally…
I watched as “my body” was pushed into this big machine that cremates people.
Then a man handed Mom a small box with my ashes inside.
Mom just sat on the curb holding that little box, staring blankly at the traffic until late at night.
Back home, she’d burst into tears under the covers or just lie there staring at the ceiling.
I lay down gently beside her.
I wanted to pat her back softly, like she used to do for me when I couldn’t sleep.
But my hand just went right through her.
It scared me so much I screamed!
But Mom didn’t even flinch.
She lay there motionless.
I got bored and went over to the half-finished LEGO set we were working on yesterday.
Again, my hands went through the bricks. I couldn’t pick anything up.
I tried to turn on the TV for cartoons, but I couldn’t even touch the remote.
Nothing else to do, I just went back and lay next to Mom.
My soul curled up against her, right there on the bed.
Maybe it was okay, just being quiet with her.
But wasn’t she hungry?
She hadn’t eaten anything for hours.
I really wanted Mom’s mac and cheese!
But I was dead. Did that mean I would never get to eat it again?
I counted on my fingers. On the third day, Mom finally got up.
She checked her phone. No calls, no messages.
I was dead. Mom was heartbroken, and Dad hadn’t even called once.
I hated Dad so much!
He never cared about me or Mom.
I watched Mom take some papers out of the nightstand drawer.
I recognized the big words at the top: Divorce Papers!
Those papers had been in her drawer for ages!
I remembered she’d looked at them several times, then looked at me, and finally locked them away again.
Finally, Dad came home.
He stormed in and yelled from the couch.
“Your son has no manners!”
“Vanessa put so much effort into that party, baked a cherry cake just for him, and he spat it on the floor!”
“And you! You had to crash Vanessa’s party!”
“She asked what you were doing there, and you just shoved past her and grabbed the kid!”
“Can’t you act civilized? Do you know you made Vanessa fall? She cut her hand!”
Mom listened with a blank face.
Ever since that woman, Vanessa, came into our lives, Dad had become more and more impatient to Mom.
I wanted to tell Dad, “I’m dead. Does that make up for Vanessa’s cut hand? Can you please stop blaming Mom?”
Dad saw Mom’s silence and raised his voice even more.
“I’m talking to you! You bitch! Are you deaf?”
“Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was when you slapped me in public!”
“That kid learned it from you! Even something simple like eating cherries! He’s not nearly as well-behaved as Vanessa’s daughter!”
He got up and headed for my room.
“I’m taking charge of him from now on! I’ll teach the little brat how to behave!”
Mom stopped him. Her smile was bitter, sarcastic.
“You remember Jake is your son? You always say ‘your son’. I thought he was just mine!”
“But it doesn’t matter anymore. I want a divorce.”
Dad looked at the divorce papers she held out and sneered.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Remember, you were the one begging me to marry you back then. Now you want a divorce?”
Mom sighed, “Yeah. You don’t love me. You don’t love Jake.”
“Let’s stop torturing each other.”
“Sign the papers, then you can be with your mistress openly. Why not?”
Dad shoved Mom, and she fell to the floor.
“You’re just a crazy bitch!”
“You trespassed at her party! Vanessa could press charges!”
“I made your son stand outside for a bit and you pull this!?”
“What were you thinking?”
Mom was shaking with anger.
“What was I thinking? I want to know what you were thinking! Don’t you know Jake is severely allergic to cherries?”
“He was six the first time he tried one! He broke out in hives. His throat swelled up. He couldn’t breathe!”
“That cake had cherries in it, why shouldn’t he spit it out!?”
“I was saving our son, why couldn’t I go in?”
“If… if Vanessa hadn’t wasted my time stopping me, maybe Jake would still be…”
She started crying again. I wanted so badly to hug her.
Dad just snorted, disgusted.
“Stop lying! Nothing happens from eating a cherry!”
“A severe allergy? I’m allergic to bitch like you!”
“I never heard about this allergy when he was six! You’re just using the kid to control me! ”
” Today I’m going to make him eat cherries! Let me cure him of this nonsense!”
“And stop fucking crying! All you do is cry, cry, cry! Anyone would think your kid has died!”
Then he went to the fridge, got the cherries he’d brought back from Vanessa’s place a couple days ago, and headed straight for my room.
Mom just sat silently on the couch, shaking her head.
Vanessa loved cherries.
Every time Dad came back from her place, he’d bring a bag of it, saying they were for us.
They’d just rot on the counter, and Mom would throw them away.
When Dad saw them in trash bin, he yelled at us for being ungrateful.
Mom always told him about my allergy, but Dad never believed her.
Once, when Mom was out, he tried to force me to drink a cherry smoothie.
“Your mom says you’re allergic, I don’t buy it. She’s just being difficult about Vanessa!”
I ended up crying and biting his arm. He kicked me a few times on the floor, then finally left.
The smoothie spilled everywhere, some got on my clothes.
I didn’t want Mom to worry, so I tried to do the laundry like she did and cleaned the floor.
When Mom came back, she asked why I changed clothes.
I lied and said I wet my pants. She teased me about it for days.
Now, of course, Dad didn’t find me in my room.
He glared at Mom. “Emily, you’re something else. Hiding the kid before you even ask for a divorce.”
“No money, no job, no family… you know you’d lose custody anyway!”
“You think keeping him means you can still hang onto me, right?”
“Try to get money out of me? You’re so pathetic!”
“Let me tell you, divorce is fine, I’ll even give you some money, but Jake comes with me!”
Mom grabbed her already packed bags and my urn, walking out without looking back.
Dad ran after her, yelling at her back.
“Get out! And don’t come back!”
“I would never have married you if it weren’t for my parents!”
“Don’t you dare come crawling back to me!”
Even though I knew he couldn’t hear, I yelled at the top of my lungs,
“I don’t want to go with you! I want Mom! You’re a bad dad!”
Then I ran to catch up with Mom, leaving that awful place behind.
Mom used to tell me stories about her and Dad. I remembered everything she said.
Mom and Dad grew up together. Their families were close.
They had an arranged marriage since they were kids.
Then Mom’s family lost all their money and went bankrupt. Grandma and Grandpa got sick and died soon after.
Dad’s parents took Mom in when she was just in middle school, and they insisted the marriage should still happen.
At first, they were young and didn’t care, just hanging out together as friends.
Then in college, Dad fell for Vanessa.
But Vanessa didn’t like Dad back then. She liked her professor, a married man in his forties.
She even followed that professor abroad.
Dad wanted to go too.
Grandpa and Grandma were furious. They locked him down and forced him to marry Mom.
Mom told me she didn’t love Dad that much.
But after her parents died, she’d been sheltered by Dad’s family.
If she didn’t marry him, where would she go? What would she do?
Besides, Grandpa and Grandma raised her just so she’d marry Dad.
She felt she couldn’t say no.
Mom thought, with their childhood friendship, Dad and skhe could at least be polite to each other.
But Dad started hating Mom.
He thought Mom was just after his family’s money. In his eyes, Mom just wanted a comfortable life as Mrs. Miller.
He was sure Mom had snitched to his parents, then begged them to make him marry her.
He believed Mom ruined his chance at true love, keeping him from his soulmate.
In my memory, Dad was almost never home.
Especially after Vanessa came back into their lives, every time he was home, it was just awful yelling.
…
Moving out from Dad’s place, Mom took me to a small apartment that Grandpa and Grandma had put in her name before they died.
Maybe they knew this would happen some day and gave her a place to go.
The apartment was cozy.
Mom put “me” on a low shelf in the corner. I heard her talking to me:
“Jake, honey, I’m sorry you have to stay here for a little while.”
“Mommy’s been too sad these past few days, I haven’t found you a proper place yet.”
“I’ll go look for a cemetery soon, okay?”
I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me, and felt a wave of sadness.
Mom couldn’t see me anymore.
We couldn’t bake together, build LEGOs.
I couldn’t listen to her stories…
Mom picked a spot for me on a hill.
It was high up, and you could even see the amusement park in the distance from there.
The manager was about to have Mom sign some papers when her phone rang.
It was the apartment security. Someone had broken in.
Mom rushed back in a taxi.
The building manager and security guard were being held back by a couple of big, tough-looking guys.
I could hear Dad’s angry voice from inside the apartment.
“It’s a few rooms! How can you not find him!”
Mom rushed in. “What are you doing?”
Dad frowned, hands in his pockets, looking at Mom with disgust.
“Good, you’re back. Hand Jake over. I’m taking him to apologize to Vanessa!”
Mom stared at him, disbelief all over her face.
“Richard, Jake just spat out cherries which he’s allergic to.”
“You’re still on this? He’s your son!”
Dad waved a hand. “I don’t have a son who tries to kill people! When I find him, I’ll teach him a lesson he won’t forget!”
I yelled back, “I didn’t!”
But Dad couldn’t hear me.
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