Chapter 10 - WHY HE WAS IN THE PARKAdrian confessed from a hospital bed.
Mom stood beside him.
Angry.
Very angry.
“You knew I was alive?”
“Not exactly.”
“You followed me.”
“I followed a financial signature.”
Mom crossed her arms.
“That sounds like rich-person stalking.”
Emma nodded.
“It does.”
Adrian sighed.
Three months before Mom's accident, a dormant Vale Meridian account moved seventeen dollars.
Exactly seventeen.
Michael Reed used seventeen-dollar test transactions when tracking Black Harbor.
Adrian recognized the pattern.
He traced the transaction.
It led to Mom.
“I didn't know it was Claire,” Adrian said.
“But you suspected.”
“I hoped.”
Mom stopped being angry.
That was worse.
“You hoped?”
Adrian looked at her.
“For twelve years.”
Nobody joked.
Adrian had gone to Riverside Park because surveillance showed Mom sometimes walked there with us.
He wanted to see her before approaching.
Instead, Julian poisoned him.
We saved him before he could find Mom.
Emma whispered, “So we saved him because he was looking for Mommy.”
I said, “That's weird.”
Grandma said, “Life is weird.”
Weeks passed.
Mom learned to walk again.
Adrian returned to work.
Grandma moved into a house beside Adrian's temporary home.
She claimed it was only until security improved.
Nobody believed her.
Julian testified.
He received prison time.
A lot.
Before sentencing, he apologized to Adrian.
Adrian didn't forgive him.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
Mercer went to trial.
Michael's video convicted him.
Mom attended every day.
On the final day, Mercer looked at her.
“You think you won?”
Mom smiled.
“My daughters are waiting for me at home.”
Mercer had no answer.
That night, we ate pizza.
Adrian burned garlic bread.
Mom laughed at him.
He looked at her the way people look at something they thought they had lost forever.
Emma kicked me beneath the table.
“What?”
She pointed.
Adrian was holding Mom's hand.
I smiled.
Months later, Adrian took us to the lake in the photograph.
The place where he and Mom had once been happy.
Mom stood near the water.
“I was supposed to marry him here,” she told us.
“What happened?”
“Life.”
“That is not an answer.”
Mom smiled.
“No. It isn't.”
Adrian approached.
He held something.
The silver necklace.
He gave it to Mom.
“I kept the other half.”
He showed her a small silver ring.
Mom began crying.
Emma whispered, “He's going to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Shh.”
Adrian didn't kneel.
He simply stood in front of Mom.
“I already asked you once when we were too young to understand what forever costs.”
Mom cried harder.
“This time I'm not asking for forever.”
Adrian took her hand.
“I'm asking for tomorrow.”
Mom kissed him.
Emma groaned.
I clapped.
Grandma cried.
May you like
Mara pretended to check security.
Mom said yes.
