Clara felt her lips curve despite herself. She remembered Axiel at dinner the other day, and also saw him at the wedding today. She liked the boy, just as she had liked Mr. and Mrs. Ashford's hospitality.
Once Ethan left, she slipped out of her gown and took a quick shower. Afterwards, she felt her muscles slowly loosen, though her mind stayed restless.
She will try again tomorrow.
She had one lead on Cade: that a family in the city had adopted him. The records were sealed, and she had been too young and powerless at the time to fight it. Now, she intended to petition for the files to be reopened.
As she put on her pajamas, her mind drifted, and before she could stop it, the memories came back.
She was 18, well, 18 and half years, packing for college, the day she learned Cade had been adopted. They told her it was a good family, that he was happy now. She told herself to be happy too, but the truth was, a piece of her broke the day she gave him away. She moved to Boston partly to escape New York and partly to build a life worthy of the sacrifice she had made.
At Harvard law, she worked harder than anyone else she knew, always with Cade in the back of her mind. Then came Cade's first birthday. She barely got out of bed. That evening, she drowned herself in cheap liquor until she could barely walk. That night, she also went home with a stranger, a guy she couldn't pick from a line up the following day. It didn't dull the ache; it only numbed her for a moment.
Then his second birthday came and went. Then his third. His fourth.Time passed quickly and mercilessly, but the pain didn't fade. If anything, it deepened, and burned inside her.
Now, in just a few months, it will be his ninth birthday, and she will never get to celebrate any with him, unless the petition pulls through of course.
She didn't realise she was crying until she heard a quiet rustle and looked up. Ethan was standing beside her, his expression unreadable but his eyes sharp with concern. Without asking, he knelt and wrapped his arms around her.