PART 14 — THE DAY ADRIAN ASKED FOR FORGIVENESS
Adrian was seventy when the prison informed Anna he was dying.
Cancer had spread through his liver and bones.
He requested visits from both of us.
I declined.
Anna did not decide immediately.
“Will you regret going?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Will you regret not going?”
“Maybe.”
“There is no perfect decision.”
“I know.”
She visited alone.
Adrian lay inside the prison medical unit.
He looked smaller than she remembered.
No tailored suit.
No boardroom.
No people waiting for his approval.
Only a thin blanket and a guard outside the door.
“You came,” he said.
“For myself.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
He accepted that.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Adrian asked about the company.
“It was sold.”
He closed his eyes.
“The name?”
“Being removed.”
Pain crossed his face.
Not physical pain.
Loss.
“Your mother allowed that?”
“She voted for it.”
“Of course.”
He sounded bitter.
Then tired.
“I wasted everything.”
Anna remained silent.
“I thought if I controlled the company, no one could make me feel poor again.”
She had never heard him speak about his childhood.
Adrian’s father had been a factory worker.
His mother cleaned offices.
He attended elite schools through scholarships and spent his youth being reminded that he did not belong.
“That explains your hunger,” Anna said. “It does not explain what you did to us.”
“I know.”
It was the first time he said those words without adding a defense.
He looked toward her.
“Can you forgive me?”
“No.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“But I don’t spend every day hating you,” she continued. “That is the most I can give.”
He nodded.
“That is more than I deserve.”
Anna stood to leave.
“Did you ever love me?” he asked.
She stopped.
“I loved the man I thought visited me because he cared.”
“That was me.”
“No. That was one part of you.”
She looked back.
“You kept choosing the other part.”
Adrian died four days later.
The prison returned several personal items.
His wedding ring.
A photograph of Sterling Manor.
A newspaper clipping from Anna’s law-school graduation.
And one letter addressed to me.
I did not open it.
I placed it beside the first letter in the legal archive.
Anna asked why.
“Because I have spent enough of my life allowing his words to arrive after his choices.”
She understood.
We held no public funeral.
The prison buried him in a small cemetery at his request.
Anna attended.
I did not.
Neither decision was judged by the other.
Bianca sent Anna a letter after hearing of his death.
It contained one sentence.
May you like
I hope the world he built inside your head died before he did.
Anna kept that letter too.
