My Billionaire Dad Got Arrested, So I Used a Magic Watch to Save Him… But I Saved My Dead Mom Instead

The Hard Truth

I woke up on the floor of Jadis’s library, gasping for air. Ezra was standing over me, looking concerned for the first time.

“You were screaming,” he said.

I sat up, clutching the watch. The digital counter now read: *2 Chances Remaining*.

“It didn’t work,” I whispered. “He… he tried to run. I made it worse.”

Jadis walked in, carrying a tray of sandwiches. “You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, Abby.”

“I have to try again,” I said, my voice shaking. “Maybe if I go back further. Maybe if I stop him from taking the money in the first place.”

“And how would you do that?” Ezra asked, sitting on the edge of the table. “He’s a grown man. You’re a kid. You think he’s going to listen to his teenage daughter about financial ethics?”

I didn’t answer. I spent the next few days agonizing over the second attempt. I thought about going back to the first time he embezzled. But Ezra was right. My father loved money more than he respected the law. If I stopped him once, he’d just do it again later. He was broken in a way I couldn’t fix.

I realized then that my second chance was useless if the target was my father. I could use it, sure. I could go back and try to manipulate the accounts myself, or anonymously tip off the police earlier to get him a lighter sentence. But the result would be the same: him in cuffs, me alone.

I didn’t use the watch for weeks. I let the second chance sit there, heavy in my pocket. I started helping Jadis in the garden. I started talking to Ezra about his mom, about how he dealt with the anger.

“You stop expecting them to be the parents you want,” Ezra told me one night while we were shelling peas on the porch. “And you start accepting who they actually are.”

That’s when it hit me. I had been trying to save the wrong parent.

Attempt Three: The Year of the Mother

My mother died when I was fourteen. It was a genetic condition, swift and brutal. But before she got sick, she was the light of my life. She was the one who taught me to be kind, even when my father taught me to be ruthless.

I sat in the library with Jadis one last time. “I know what I want to do,” I said.

“Tell me,” she replied.

“I’m not going back to save Dad. I’m going back to see Mom. I want to go back to when I was thirteen. A year before the diagnosis.”

Jadis smiled, a genuine, crinkling smile. “Now you’re learning.”

I set the date. Four years ago.

When I opened my eyes, I was smaller. My hair was shorter. I was standing in the kitchen of our old penthouse. The smell of roasting garlic and rosemary filled the air.

“Abby? You’re home early from school!”

I turned around. There she was. Healthy. Vibrant. Alive. She was wearing a flour-dusted apron and smiling that smile I thought I’d lost forever.

“Mom,” I choked out.

I ran to her, burying my face in her apron. I cried so hard she dropped her wooden spoon.

“Honey, what’s wrong? Did something happen at school?”

“No,” I sobbed. “I just… I missed you.”

I didn’t waste this trip on warnings. I didn’t talk about stocks or bonds. I spent that year living. really living. We took a pottery class together. We traveled to Italy, just the two of us. We cooked dinner every night.

But being back also revealed the truth I had been too young to see the first time. I saw the late nights my father didn’t come home. I saw the lipstick stains he didn’t bother to hide. I overheard the phone calls where he screamed about laundering money through shell companies.

He had been cheating on her. He had been a criminal for years. And my mother… she knew. I saw the sadness in her eyes when he lied to her face.

One night, while we were making cookies, I looked at her. “Why do you stay with him?”

She looked at me, surprised. “Because I want you to have a family, Abby. And because… I’m tired.”

“You deserve better,” I told her, gripping her hand. “We both do. We should go to Thailand. To grandma and grandpa’s. We should just go.”

She looked at me for a long time. Something shifted in her eyes. A spark of rebellion I hadn’t seen before.

“Maybe you’re right,” she whispered.