Chapter 12 - Milo Finally Told Adrian About The Worst Night
The worst incident had happened in February.
Adrian learned about it almost six months later.
Milo woke from a nightmare about Hannah.
He cried.
Bianca came into his bedroom.
He asked her to call Adrian, who was at a corporate dinner.
She refused.
Milo kept crying.
Bianca took him downstairs.
Put him in the closet.
Closed the door.
Then left him there.
“How long?”
Milo shrugged.
“A long time.”
The camera timestamps answered.
Forty-three minutes.
Forty-three minutes felt like nothing to an adult reading numbers on a screen.
To an eight-year-old alone in darkness after dreaming about his dead mother?
It was enormous.
Adrian went outside after learning that and threw up in the garden.
Not because the confinement caused physical injury.
Because he imagined his son calling for him.
And Adrian, somewhere across town, eating steak and checking email.
He could not undo that night.
He could only refuse to lie about it.
When Milo asked later:
“Were you mad I woke up crying?”
Adrian answered:
“No.”
“Would you have come home?”
“Yes.”
“Even from dinner?”
“Yes.”
Milo looked down.
“I didn’t know.”
That sentence became Adrian’s real punishment.
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His son had not known whether his father would come.
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