CHAPTER 13: The House with Too Many Rooms
Marcus took Oliver back to the Hale estate only once after the gala, and only because the child asked for his stuffed bear, his sketchbooks, and the wooden music box hidden beneath his bed.
Elena went with them.
The estate stood behind iron gates and old trees, enormous enough to impress strangers and cold enough to swallow childhood whole. Elena had seen photographs of it in newspapers. Standing inside its marble foyer, she understood how a boy could live surrounded by wealth and still feel abandoned.
Oliver held her hand tightly.
“Grandmother said this house belonged to the family forever,” he said.
Marcus looked around at portraits of men who had taught their sons to inherit power before kindness. “Then maybe forever is too long.”
In Oliver’s room, Elena noticed details no visitor would: the books arranged by someone else’s taste, the clothes too formal for play, the absence of messy drawings on the walls. A child lived there, but the room had been curated like a display.
Oliver crawled under the bed and pulled out the music box.
“It plays the song,” he said.
Elena took it with shaking hands. The melody began slowly, tinny and fragile. It was the lullaby she had sung while pregnant, the one Marcus used to tease was too sad for a baby.
“How did you get this?” she whispered.
Oliver shrugged. “I found it in Dad’s old things. Grandmother tried to take it, so I hid it.”
Marcus stood in the doorway, looking shattered again.
“I kept it,” he said. “After they told me you left, I packed everything away because it hurt too much.”
Elena looked at him. “Your pain had a room. Mine had nowhere to go.”
He nodded. “I know.”
Downstairs, police supervised the removal of files from Victoria’s private office. Among them were nondisclosure agreements, payments to hospital administrators, and a folder labeled Ward.
Elena did not open it there. She was not ready to see how neatly her suffering had been organized.
Oliver packed only one suitcase.
May you like
When Marcus asked if he wanted anything else, the boy looked around the giant room and shook his head.
“I just want to go where nobody lies.”
