Chapter 5 - Shadows of the Past
True to my word, I didn't leave. For three agonizing days, I stayed in the hospital parking lot inside my rented SUV. Winter temperatures dropped to ten degrees below zero every night, but I refused to turn the engine on for heat. Every time my teeth chattered and my limbs began to ache with the bitter, burning cold, I forced myself to endure it. It was a pathetic, microscopic fraction of the agony Clara had endured inside that frozen shed, but it was the only penance my shattered mind could cling to.
Word of my vigil spread quickly. Tabloid photographers camped out at the perimeter, snapping pictures of the once-immaculate billionaire Ethan Black looking emaciated, unkempt, and shivering in a frozen parking lot. Social media dubbed it “The Billionaire’s Frozen Penance.” Sophia Lane attempted to capitalize on the media frenzy by giving an exclusive television interview, claiming she was an innocent victim who had been “manipulated by Ethan’s false promises.”
Her interview backfired spectacularly. When the interviewer revealed authenticated text messages between Sophia and her talent agent boasting about “bleeding the real estate mogul dry for high-end jewelry and beachfront villas,” the public turned on her completely. Her brand endorsements dropped her within hours, and she was forced into hiding. But none of that brought me any satisfaction. Sophia was a symptom of my own rotten vanity; the disease was entirely inside me.
On the fourth morning, a light snow was falling over the hospital grounds. I was sitting on the icy curb, clutching a paper cup of lukewarm coffee, when a pair of heavy snow boots stopped directly in front of me. I looked up. It was Marcus Vance.
He looked down at me, taking in my sunken eyes, chapped lips, and shivering frame. He held a small, insulated thermos in his hand. Without a word, he sat down next to me on the curb and offered the thermos.
“Drink it,” Marcus said quietly. “Black coffee with a pinch of salt. Keeps the blood moving.”
I hesitated, then took it with trembling hands. “Why are you being kind to me, Marcus? You hate my guts.”
“I hate what you did,” Marcus corrected, gazing out at the snow-covered peaks in the distance. “I’ve spent thirty years pulling bodies off these mountains. Most of the time, nature is cruel because it’s indifferent. But when a man leaves his family out in the elements because his ego got too big for his skin, that makes my blood boil. But seeing you out here for seventy-two hours, freezing your tail off without calling your PR team or your fancy lawyers... that tells me the man Clara fell in love with eleven years ago wasn't completely dead. Just buried under a lot of garbage.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, stinging against my frost-chapped skin. “I killed our baby, Marcus. She was carrying our little girl, and I wasn't there.”
Marcus fell silent for a long moment, watching the steam rise into the frosty air. “Clara talked to me while we were flying her out on the LifeFlight helicopter. She was delirious, drifting in and out of consciousness. But she kept repeating one thing over and over.”
I looked at him desperately. “What did she say?”
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“She said: ‘Tell Ethan that forgiveness is a choice, but trust has to be rebuilt from the bedrock.’ She wasn't just talking about the marriage, Ethan. She was talking about your soul.” Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, metallic flash drive. “This is a copy of Clara’s final audio and video files from the maintenance station. The sheriff released the original phone to her legal team yesterday. I shouldn't be giving you this. But Clara asked me last night to see how long you’d sit in this snow before you broke.”
Marcus placed the flash drive into my palm and closed my fingers around it. “She’s watching you from her room window on the third floor, Ethan. Don’t waste the second chance she’s quietly deciding whether or not to give you.”
