chapter hundred and Eleven

The day was quiet too quiet for Adrian’s liking. The air carried that muted chill that came just before autumn truly began, and the grey clouds above the city felt heavy with memory. It had been years since Adrian visited his parents’ graves, and though he had thought of them often, life had been moving so fast lately the company, the family, the quiet domestic happiness he never believed he’d have that the past had slowly blurred into something distant, almost unreal.

But that morning, as he sat by the window of his office, the city skyline glinting through the glass, a strange melancholy washed over him. It wasn’t sadness exactly more like a pull, a quiet reminder of where he came from, of the ghosts who had shaped him before he learned how to build something gentler.

He shut down his computer, ignored the calls waiting to be returned, and drove out of the city. The road to the old family cemetery was long and winding, lined with trees that whispered softly in the breeze. The far