Chapter 9 - SHADOWS IN THE REARVIEW
Three months later, the bitter Chicago winter had transformed the Oakridge suburbs into a landscape of stark, white ice and gray asphalt.
Arthur’s accounting firm was officially gone, its name scraped off the glass doors of the downtown office suite by court order. The proceeds from the corporate liquidation had narrowly satisfied the IRS tax liens, sparing him a federal indictment, but leaving him with a hollowed-out savings account and a fraction of his former pension.
My parents were now living in the drafty, sixty-year-old caretaker’s cottage at the far back of the property that Vanguard Maritime had acquired. Arthur spent his mornings shoveling snow off the long driveway, his back stooped against the wind, while Beverly sat inside, staring out the window at the grand brick manor house that she no longer owned.
Ble had vanished from the Chicago social scene entirely.
Her public apology, mandated by the legal settlement, had gone viral across local lifestyle forums, resulting in the immediate termination of every brand sponsorship she possessed. Her high-society friends had blocked her numbers within hours of Hunter’s public statement.
Deprived of her luxury credit cards, her sports car, and her penthouse, she was currently living in a cramped, one-bedroom garden apartment in Cicero, working twenty-four hours a week as a receptionist at an automated tire warehouse—a facility, ironically enough, that used my logistics software to clock her hourly shifts.
I never checked on them. I never drove past the house.
Julian Vance managed the rental trusts through an automated property management firm. To me, their names had been reduced to rows on an encrypted ledger—debts that had been balanced, closed, and permanently archived.
On a bright, freezing Tuesday afternoon in late January, Declan and I sat in the observation lounge of the Chicago Pediatric Rehabilitation Institute.
Through the large double-paned glass window, we watched Mave.
The rigid cast had been removed three weeks earlier, replaced by a light, flexible compression sleeve. Mave was sitting at a low wooden table opposite an occupational therapist named Sarah.
Between them lay a wooden puzzle board containing twelve small, circular pegs.
“Okay, Mave,” Sarah said with a patient smile. “Take your time. Just three fingers. Pinch, lift, and place.”
Mave took a deep, audible breath. Her face was a mask of fierce, absolute concentration.
Slowly, deliberately, she extended her right arm. Her forearm muscles twitched visibly beneath the pale skin, where a jagged, four-inch surgical scar ran like a silver river along her flexor tendon.
Her fingers trembled. Her index finger hesitated, shaking as her brain sent the electrical signals down the newly repaired median nerve.
Beside me, Declan reached out, his hand gripping mine so hard his knuckles turned white. We didn't breathe.
Mave’s thumb and forefinger closed around the wooden peg.
She lifted it two inches off the table.
Her wrist wobbled, the tendon straining against months of atrophy. For a second, the peg slipped, almost falling back onto the felt board.
Mave gritted her teeth, narrowed her eyes, and stabilized her wrist.
Click.
The peg slid cleanly into the circular hole.
Sarah clapped her hands in pure delight. “Yes! Look at that grip control, Mave! That was four seconds faster than yesterday!”
Mave looked up through the glass partition.
She saw Declan and me standing there with our faces pressed against the window, tears streaming down our cheeks.
Mave held up her right hand, spread all five fingers wide, and gave us a clumsy, triumphant wave.
May you like
Declan buried his face in his hands, laughing through his tears, pulling me against his side. “She’s doing it, Sloan. She’s getting it back.”
“I told you,” I whispered, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my favorite worn gray sweater. “She’s stronger than all of them combined.”
