Chapter 25 - Building Again
Construction resumed on a Monday morning.
At sunrise, more than four hundred workers gathered at the riverfront.
The burned eastern wing had been cleared.
Fresh steel waited beneath the cranes.
I stood beside Julian wearing a hard hat and holding a ceremonial shovel I had absolutely no intention of pretending could move real dirt.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No.”
He smiled.
“Good.”
The rehabilitation center was redesigned after the fire.
Bigger.
Safer.
Better.
We added family apartments for parents traveling from out of state.
A therapy garden overlooking the river.
An education wing for children undergoing long-term treatment.
And one unexpected addition.
The Arthur Whitmore Family Counseling Center.
Arthur hated the name.
Which was partly why Julian chose it.
“You’re enjoying this too much,” I told him.
“Possibly.”
Arthur attended the groundbreaking with his arm still in a sling.
He looked uncomfortable when workers applauded him.
Ryan stood far from the press.
He had accepted a plea agreement for his financial crimes.
No prison.
Three years of probation.
Full restitution.
Five thousand hours of community service.
And a permanent ban from serving as an officer of any publicly traded company.
A year ago, those consequences would have destroyed him.
Now he seemed relieved.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
He looked toward the construction site.
“Work.”
“At what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That answer might have been the healthiest thing he had ever said.
Maya Collins appeared unexpectedly near the end of the ceremony.
Ryan froze.
I had not seen her since the wedding.
She looked different too.
Simpler.
Older.
She approached carefully.
“I’m not here for trouble.”
Ryan’s expression tightened.
“Then why are you here?”
“To return something.”
She handed him an envelope.
Inside were documents transferring ownership of the Philadelphia apartment back to the Whitmore restitution trust.
Ryan stared.
“You could have kept this.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Maya looked at him.
“Because I got tired of waking up inside a life somebody else paid for.”
They stood silently.
Two people who had once used each other as proof of their own importance.
Now stripped of everything artificial.
“Good luck, Ryan,” she said.
“You too.”
She walked away.
Ryan watched her go.
Then he turned toward me.
“I used to think losing you was the worst thing that happened to me.”
I raised an eyebrow.
He smiled faintly.
“Turns out losing you was the first thing that ever forced me to meet myself.”
I didn’t know what to say.
So I nodded.
Some apologies were better accepted with silence.
Behind me, Julian called my name.
I turned.
May you like
My husband stood beneath the rising frame of the future hospital.
And I walked toward him.
