Seventeen-year old Ash Ketchum barged noisily into the kitchen where his mother was preparing dinner and dropped his backpack on the table with a loud thud.
"Hey, Mom," he said as he stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth. "What's for supper?"
"Lasagna," she replied. "And it still has another twenty minutes to go in the oven. Want to help me make the salad?"
"No thanks," Ash replied between bites. "I gotta go find my birth certificate. Misty's going to help me fill out college applications tonight and Celadon U. needs a copy."
"It's upstairs, in the blue and white shoebox in my bedroom closet," Delia said without paying much attention to Ash. She was too busy trying to keep an overly helpful Mimie from merrily tossing the salad all over the kitchen counter and floor.
Then with horror, she realized what she had done. Delia raced upstairs, hoping it wasn't too late.
But it was.
Ash sat on his mother's bed with a stunned expression on his face. He was holding a small photograph in his trembling hands.
"Mom," Ash said with a shaky voice as he handed her the picture, "what's this?"
What's this picture of Mom and Professor Oak doing in here, Ash had wondered as he opened the envelope labeled "Ash's birth certificate". And who's the baby with them?
He looked at the date on the back of the picture. It was dated over seventeen years ago.
Seventeen years.
Ash studied the picture again.
Looks like this was taken in the hospital right after I was born.
By now he had figured out that the baby in the picture was him, but he thought it was a little strange that Professor Oak was holding him. And the way Professor Oak was looking at him was strange, too.
Man, you'd think that Professor Oak was my dad by the way he's holding me in this picture.
Ash then felt as if he'd been hit by a blow from Machamp.
Oh my God!
With shaking hands, Ash unfolded the birth certificate and quickly scanned it until he came to the box labeled "Father".
And there it was. In neatly typed letters was the name "Samuel A. Oak".
Delia saw the expression on her son's face and felt her heart sink. He knew.
"Ash," she said quietly as she sat beside him on the bed, "we were going to wait until you were an adult to tell you, but I think you're old enough now to know the truth."
"Which is?" Ash said with a pained expression. He had figured it out too, but he wanted to hear it from her.
"That Professor Oak is your father."
"But why…why didn't you tell me?" Ash held out the birth certificate, which he had been crumpling in his hands.
"Because at the time we thought it was the best thing to do," Delia said slowly as she took the crumpled document and smoothed it out. "Ash, when I got pregnant with you, I was working as a research assistant in your father's lab."
My father…Ash still couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Delia continued. "Because we were working together and Samuel was my boss, there would've been a huge scandal. Especially since I was living in the apartment above the lab as the night caretaker at the time. His career as a researcher and professor would've been ruined, not to mention his reputation. We decided the best thing to do was to say that my husband was away on a Pokémon journey and had stopped by to visit me briefly and that's how I got pregnant. The truth was that Will was long gone before that. Matter of fact, the day the divorce papers arrived was the day I got pregnant with you."
Ash had stopped believing that his father was away on a Pokémon journey long ago. He had figured that his dad had abandoned them, like Brock's dad had done to him. Part of him had even secretly hoped that his dad would someday return like Brock's and they would be a family again. And now his mom was telling him that his dad really wasn't his dad after all, but was Professor Oak. He hadn't even known that his mother and the man he had thought was his father were divorced until now.
Guess that makes me Ash Oak, he thought bitterly. And if I'm Professor Oak's son, then that makes Gary…
Ash started laughing hysterically and flopped backwards on the bed. Delia looked at her son with frightened eyes.
"Ash, what is it?" she asked fearfully. She was worried that the news had been too much for him to bear and that something inside him had snapped.
"I just figured out that I'm Gary's uncle!" Ash laughed bitterly. "I'm that stuck-up jerk's uncle…can you believe that? Actually, I don't even know what to believe anymore." Ash sat back up and put his face in his hands.
"Ash," Delia said, fighting back tears, "I know this is hard for you to accept, but you have to believe one thing…that I love you and always will." She placed her arm around her son and gently squeezed his shoulder.
"I can't deal with this, Mom. I've gotta get out of here for a while." Ash jumped up and ran out of the bedroom.
"Ash, wait!" Delia yelled as Ash ran down the stairs. She heard the front door slam so hard that it shook the pictures in their frames. Delia covered her face with her hands and wept.