Son Locks Mom in Cellar & Goes on a Date, He Receives Call From Hospital Later – Story of the Day

Kyle is outraged when his mother grounds him right before a date, so he locks her in the basement. But an urgent call from the hospital interrupts his date and forces Kyle to confront the life-changing consequences of his selfish actions.

Kyle was fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror when Mom entered.

"Sorry, I didn't realize you were in here. I need to grab the laundry hamper..." Mom smiled quizzically as she studied him. "You look like nice. Are you headed out?"

"I'm going on a date." He turned to leave, but Mom stepped in front of him.

"Not so fast! I didn't know you were seeing someone." She playfully tapped his arm. "Give me all the details, honey! Who is she, and why didn't you tell me about her?"

Kyle sighed and rolled his eyes. "Don't start planning my wedding, Mom. It's not a real date. I've got to smooth-talk this nerd in my class so she'll help me with my Social Studies project."

Mom's jaw dropped. "You're kidding me, right? What makes you think it's okay to use this poor girl like that? This is immoral, Kyle! And I really thought I'd raised you better than this."

"This project makes up a large chunk of my final grade! Without whatshername's help, I'm going to fail." He stepped past Mom and marched to his room, determined to finish getting ready and leave without any more lecturing.

"You don't even know her name?" Mom yelled after him. "That's terrible! The ends don't justify the means here, Kyle. You can't do this to that poor girl."

Kyle shut the door to mute Mom's rant. She sounded like a character from some cartoon for kindergarteners. Everyone knew that, in the real world, you had to do whatever it took to get what you wanted in life.

Mom banged on the door. "I'm still talking to you, Kyle! Open up right now!"

Kyle buttoned up his shirt and yanked the door open. "Look, Mom. You're the one who told me I needed to graduate with great grades before you'd buy me a car...something you should do anyway since I'll need it to get to my community college classes."

"You can’t be serious. I can't even afford a car for myself, but I was willing to figure something out to reward you for the hard work and effort you were supposed to put into studying to get those good grades!"

Mom fisted her hands in her hair. "You're grounded for the rest of the month, Kyle."

"You can't do that! The project is due next week!"

"And now you'll have plenty of time to work on it, won't you?" Mom said.

Kyle stared in shock and disbelief as Mom walked away from him. He still stood there when she emerged from the bathroom with the laundry hamper. A red-hot sense of injustice clouded his heart as he watched her head down to the basement.

This wasn't fair! He needed that car, and Mom never specified what methods he should use to raise his grades. She had no right to punish him or to tag on all these ridiculous terms and conditions. He followed her downstairs to argue his case.

Kyle paused at the entrance to the basement and stared at the clock. The sound of Mom huffing and puffing as she muttered angrily to herself echoed up into the kitchen. He didn't have time for more drama if he wanted to make it to the coffee shop on time for his date.

A simpler solution flashed into his mind. He smiled as he locked the basement door, trapping his mother. Then he ran to her bedroom and took money from her pocketbook to pay for his date and his bus fare.

He grinned as he raced down the street to catch his bus. Mom would be mad when he got home later, but it would all be worth it on graduation day. Mom would never go back on a promise. All he needed to do was point out that she hadn't said he should study to raise his marks, and she'd be trapped by her own loophole. That car was as good as his.

At the coffee shop, it took every ounce of Kyle's determination to keep smiling at the nerdy girl seated opposite him. All he'd done was try to start a conversation by mentioning his favorite series, and she'd been chattering on about how inaccurate it was ever since.

It was a massive relief when his phone rang. He didn't even care that the caller was an unknown number. At this point in the date, he'd rather speak to a telemarketer than this freak. He quickly told his date he had to take the call.

"Hi there!" Kyle answered the phone brightly.

"Hello, this is Nurse Patty from the hospital. I'm sorry to inform you that your mother had a heart attack and has been admitted to the hospital."

"What?" Kyle turned cold as the shocking news settled over him. "But how? I mean, what happened?"

Nurse Patty explained that a neighbor had come around to borrow milk and heard Mom cry for help. She'd found her in the basement and quickly called the ambulance when she realized Mom wasn't well.

"Your mother is very lucky," Nurse Patty continued. "If the paramedics had arrived just a few minutes later, it would've been too late. We're currently trying to stabilize her, but it would be best if we could get her into surgery soon. There's one problem though..."

"Your mother doesn't have insurance," Nurse Patty continued. The nurse sighed. "She has to have bypass surgery, and it will cost around $ 100,000. How soon can you get down here to discuss the details with the doctor?"

"Uh..."

Kyle froze as the weight of this disaster hit him like a freight train. He didn't know how to handle this. He was only 18 and had never faced a situation like this before. He hadn't even known Mom had heart problems.

"Are you still there? This really is quite urgent."

"I need to go home first," Kyle replied, "but then I'll head straight to the hospital. I'll be there soon."

He ran from the coffee shop without saying goodbye to his date and jumped on a bus. His imagination kept conjuring visions of Mom calling for help from the locked basement; her face pulled into a painful grimace as her heart gave out on her.

And underlying it all was a question he was too scared to face: Would Mom still have had a heart attack if he hadn't locked her in the basement?

Kyle raced through his front door and into Mom's room. He tugged open the top drawer of her clothes bureau and pulled out the envelope where she kept her money.

He'd found the secret stash a few weeks back when he'd been searching for cash to buy an upgrade part for his PC. He hadn't touched it then because he'd assumed it was money she'd set aside for his car, but he now pulled the envelope open without a second thought.

It was empty.

Kyle stared into the envelope in confusion as he sat on the bed. As he pondered what might've happened to the money, he decided Mom must've deposited it into her bank account. He spotted Mom's glitchy, old phone on the nightstand and scrolled through the phonebook until he found the bank's number.

He gave the woman who answered his call Mom's bank account number and asked about recent deposits.

"Why, yes, there was a sizable deposit recently, but it was immediately transferred to a community college."

Mom's phone slipped from Kyle's fingers and fell onto the bed. Every cent of the thick stack of cash he'd first seen in the envelope was gone.

Kyle was back at square one. He tapped his fingers on his knee as he tried to think of a way to come up with $100,000 fast. Influencers made big bucks on social media, but he didn't have a lot of followers. He could ask his one friend to get him a job at his aunt's cafe, but it would take ages to earn the money he needed on a waiter's salary.

A revelation hit him like a lightning bolt. He could enter an online gaming tournament! Kyle rushed to his room to search for the information he'd recently seen about an upcoming tournament with a huge cash prize.

His heart dropped when he read that the tournament only started in a month, and several big-name players had entered. He wouldn't stand a chance against those sweats.

Kyle put his head in his hands, shut his eyes, and listened to the efficient whirring of his PC's cooling fans. He thought of all the money he'd stolen from Mom to buy upgrades for the machine and wished he could get it all back.

That was the answer to his problem! Kyle shut down his PC, disconnected it, and packed it into a backpack. Then he took the action figure his best friend had given him for his birthday from the bookshelf and put that in the bag, too.

Kyle took everything he thought he could sell from his room and then searched for more valuables in the rest of the house. The antique silver candlesticks and porcelain figurines Mom inherited from her Grandma, the collector's edition of her favorite book—it all went into the tote bag he took from the kitchen.

"Now, these are very nice." The man at the pawnshop examined the pair of silver candlesticks. "I'll take these off your hands for $2500...along with the rest of these items that'll come to...$17,000."

"Is that it?" Kyle stared at the man in disbelief. "But I need $100,000!"

The man threw his head back and laughed. "Son, you've got some nice items here, particularly the antiques, but nobody's going to give you 100k for them."

Kyle frowned down at the various items assembled on the pawnshop counter. It wasn't a lot, but the collection represented every precious thing he and Mom owned. Except, it wasn't particularly valuable after all.

Kyle sold everything and left the pawnshop with a heavy heart. He now had $17,000, but it wasn’t nearly enough. He was all out of ideas and didn't know what to do next. He stared at the cars whizzing by on the street and the pedestrians that hurried past him. He wished somebody in this world could help him save Mom.

An antique store across the road caught Kyle's eye. He'd been surprised to learn how much Mom's candlesticks and little porcelain statues were worth. It seemed incredibly unfair to him that all the money he needed for her surgery was probably sitting in that shop window.

That was when Kyle remembered there was somebody who could help him get the money Mom needed. He took his phone from his pocket and dialed a number he'd never expected to use again.

"Dad?" Kyle said. "I need to see you urgently. It's about Mom..."

Kyle cautiously entered the bar where Dad had asked to meet him. It felt weird to be in here, and the feeling only grew when he spotted his father drinking alone at a table against the wall. It had been seven years since he last saw Dad, and he looked like hell.

His thoughts took him back in time to the night when he was just 11 years old and had been woken by the sound of his parents arguing. He'd tiptoed to the sitting room door and listened in shock as Mom told Dad she was filing for divorce.

"I won't stay married to a thief," Mom had hissed. "I want you and your loot out of here by morning and I never want to see you again. And if you even think of contesting the divorce, I'll tell the police everything!"

Dad must've agreed to her demands because Kyle had never seen him again after that night. Mom had announced at breakfast that Dad had left them, and Kyle had nodded. They never spoke about it again.

Now, he slowly approached the table and looked down at the man who had once been his hero.

"Kyle! Look at you, all grown up." Dad grinned as he stood to hug Kyle. "Man, it's good to see you!"

Kyle awkwardly patted Dad's back. "Mom's in the hospital, and I really need your help, Dad. I want to...rob the antique store on 2nd Avenue."

Dad pulled away and shook his head. "What? No! I'm out of that business, Kyle. The night your mother kicked me out...I couldn't bring myself to steal anything after that. Sure, the money was good, but it meant nothing to me without my family."

Dad stared down into his glass as tears filled his eyes. Kyle reached across the table and shook his shoulder.

"Get a grip! Mom needs $100,000 for heart bypass surgery and I've tried everything I can think of to raise the money, but nothing works! I'm desperate, Dad, and this is the only way to get the cash fast enough for it to make a difference to Mom."

"So," Kyle sat back down and stared at Dad, "I came here to ask you for help because I know you can make sure we pull this off. But if you don't want to help me and Mom then I'll do it alone."

Dad shook his head. "You can't...the cops would catch a greenhorn like you before you even left the store."

Kyle shrugged and crossed his arms. "That's a risk I'll have to take."

"No, you won't!" Dad slammed his fist on the table hard enough to rattle his glass. "I won't see you end up in jail, no way. I'll help you, but only if you swear to me you'll never rob anyone again after this and that you'll follow my directions exactly."

After Kyle agreed to Dad's conditions, he rose from the table and gestured to Kyle to follow him. Dad drove them to 2nd Avenue and parked outside the antique shop.

"All we need to do is break the windows and take everything in the display," Kyle said. "It'll be easy."

"An easy ticket to jail, yeah. You don't just walk into stores and rob them, or smash the windows and steal the display items," Dad said. "We've got to see what the security setup is like, the employees' routines..." Dad frowned. "I shouldn't be telling you all this. Your mom would kill me...might kill me anyhow when she finds out about this."

"Only if she's still alive," Kyle snapped. "Can you please just focus?"

Dad sighed. "You wait in the car. I'm going in to check the place out."

Kyle leaned back and watched with a scowl as Dad entered the store. All these extra steps seemed unnecessary… why go to so much trouble when the two of them could easily smash the windows, grab what they wanted, and go?

But he'd agreed to do it Dad's way, so he sat in the car and waited. When Dad returned, he listened carefully to the plan he laid out.

That evening, Kyle and Dad lurked in an alleyway near the store. They wore gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints and had ski masks to cover their faces. Dad carried a backpack filled with tools. They watched as the antique store owner exited the store with a young woman and locked up.

Kyle kept watch while Dad picked the lock. Soon, they were creeping into the antique store. They each had a large duffle bag, which they started filling with various items packed out on the store's shelves.

Dad and Kyle were busy on opposite sides of the store when the sound of a key jiggling in the lock startled Kyle. He glanced at the door, spotted a man's silhouette there, and then turned to Dad. Dad was ducking behind the counter, and he beckoned Kyle to join him.

Kyle glanced back at the door. The man appeared to be struggling with something, so he quickly scurried over to join Dad. He crouched as low to the floor as he could and barely dared to breathe as he heard the door open.

"... makes no sense at all, I'm sure I locked that door," the shopkeeper mumbled. "What a stroke of luck that I forgot my hat."

Footsteps rapidly approached the counter. Kyle stared at Dad as a tsunami of terror flooded his body. Dad raised a finger to his mouth to signal silence.

"That's not right..." the shopkeeper’s footsteps sped up.

Kyle turned just as the shopkeeper rounded the end of the counter behind him. He locked gazes with the older man and saw his shock turn to fear as he processed the sight of two people dressed in dark clothes and ski masks hiding behind his counter.

"Stop him!" Dad yelled as the shopkeeper reached under the counter.

But Kyle was frozen in place. The sound of an alarm going off in the shop snapped him out of it. He stood and stared in shock at the security grille lowering over the front part of the store.

Dad sped past him and rammed into the shopkeeper. The man let out a cry and fell to the floor.

"We have to go, now!" Dad shouted. He held his loot bag tightly and raced to the door.

Kyle grabbed his bag and ran after Dad. As he skidded around the end of the counter, something closed around his ankle. Kyle's loot bag flew through the air as he threw out his hands to stop himself from falling. He looked back and saw the shopkeeper gripping his ankle.

He scrambled away from the old man. Dad was crouching under the security grille with his loot. He dropped his bag on the sidewalk and then grabbed the bottom of the grille. Dad let out a harsh cry as he tried to stop the grille from lowering any further.

Kyle raced for the door. He threw himself to the floor, but the gap was already too narrow. The grille slammed shut in front of his face.

"Hang on, son, I'll get you out." Dad removed a crowbar from his backpack. He gripped it like a baseball bat and struck the grille with all his might.

An awful clang echoed through the store, momentarily drowning out the squall of the siren. Kyle put his hands over his ears as Dad continued to hit at the grille.

Then, Dad froze. He lowered the crowbar as he turned to his right. Kyle lowered his hands. It took a moment for him to pick out the wail of police sirens over the store's alarm.

Dad looked at Kyle through the grille. He watched in horror as Dad grabbed his loot bag and ran away.

"Dad!" He screamed, angling his head to try to catch sight of him, but in his heart, he knew Dad was gone and wouldn't be coming back.

Kyle sank to his knees and leaned his forehead against the security grille. That is how the cops found him minutes later when they stormed into the store. He listened numbly as a cop read him his rights and didn't resist when the man handcuffed him and raised him to his feet.

He looked for Dad on the street as they led him to a squad car and helped him inside. However, he was quickly distracted by the ambulance that pulled up outside the store. Guilt churned in his belly as he watched the paramedics rush inside.

"The old man, the shopkeeper, is he going to be okay?" Kyle asked the cop.

But the police officer slammed the car door shut without answering his question.

"I know your type, son, and although you're putting on a brave face and clearly have a misguided sense of loyalty toward your accomplice, I can tell you're not really a part of this lifestyle." The detective leaned forward and set his elbows on the table.

Kyle sat in the interrogation room with his head hung low. He hadn't said a word so far and didn't intend to start now.

"You're old enough to be tried as an adult, you know," the detective continued. "And they will find you guilty. Prison is very hard on a young man like you, someone who made one wrong choice and ended up facing the consequences alone."

"And, to be honest, kid, the State would rather not waste time on you when we know from the shopkeeper's statement that it was your accomplice who assaulted him. He's the one we want to put away, so we're willing to offer you a deal. We know about your mom..."

Kyle looked up at the mention of his mother.

"I can understand why you'd resort to theft if you have no other means to pay that hospital bill, but you won't do her any good in jail. In fact, with her weak heart, the stress of finding out her son has been arrested could have a serious impact on her health..."

"You can't tell her!" Kyle pleaded.

"She'll have to find out sooner or later unless...if you accept the State's deal and give up your accomplice, you'll be listed as a witness in the case." The detective gave him a shrewd look.

"The shopkeeper is offering a sizable reward for one of the stolen items," he continued. "If you helped us catch your accomplice, I could probably convince him to award it to you. You'd easily be able to pay the hospital then."

Kyle let out a heavy breath and squeezed his eyes shut. They'd backed him into a corner. He thought of Mom, and his guts wormed as he struggled with the role he'd played in her heart attack. Then he remembered Dad fighting to break the security grille so he could escape the store.

But then Dad had left him. Mom would never have done that. And if Dad had truly quit stealing all those years ago, then why didn't he come back to them? Mom might not have struggled so much if Dad had been around to help with bills.

"Make the right choice here, Kyle," the detective said in a low voice. "Your mom's health is at stake."

"I'll accept the deal," Kyle said. Tears stung his eyes as he looked at the detective. "I'll tell you everything you need to know."

One week later...

Kyle paced the length of the empty hospital corridor. He still battled with the guilt of snitching on Dad, but he'd had to do whatever was necessary to save Mom.

The police released Kyle soon after he told them everything they wanted to know about Dad. Kyle knew they'd caught him because he got the reward money the next day. The detective had told him they'd let him know when the case went to trial because he'd need to take the stand...Kyle was dreading it already.

But it was all worth it because of Mom. Her surgery was scheduled to be completed soon, and Kyle couldn't wait to see her. He knew she wouldn't approve of the steps he'd taken to get the money she needed, but it was too bad. Bussing tables in a cafe would never have paid for her surgery, and his chances of winning that gaming tournament would've been slim.

"I did the right thing," Kyle muttered. If he repeated it often enough, maybe Mom wouldn't be too judgemental about his actions when he said it to her face.

The swinging door leading to the surgical theaters opened, and Mom's doctor appeared. Kyle rushed forward to meet him, but the grave expression on the doctor's face stopped him in his tracks.

"I'm sorry, Kyle. We did everything we could to save your mother but her heart failed during the procedure. She didn't make it."

The doctor’s words seemed to close around Kyle like a fist. The man was still talking, but nothing he said made sense. The whole world didn’t make sense. The man reached for his shoulder, but Kyle spun and ran away as tears filled his eyes.

Kyla fled the hospital. He ran until his legs burned, and he was out of breath, then he collapsed onto the bench at a bus stop. He'd done everything in his power to save Mom, including turning his father over to the cops, and it was all for nothing.

He beat his fist against the side of the bus stop. It wasn't fair! And he wouldn't let this be the end of it! He'd sue the hospital...or wait for the doctor in the parking lot and confront him. He'd do whatever it took to ensure they got what they deserved for letting Mom die.

Whatever it took...the words took him back to the last conversation he had with Mom. He'd locked her in the basement because of his motto of doing whatever it took to get what he wanted. And he’d followed his determination to do that to his doom.

Now he knew what Mom meant about the ends not justifying the means. There was no doubt Mom's life had been worth fighting for to the bitter end, but he'd done terrible things along the way. He'd have to live with the guilt of that for the rest of his life.

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