He Came Back With Money After Everything Was Gone Chapter 10

He Came Back With Money After Everything Was Gone Chapter 10

Two years later.

The wind and sand in the rural Northwest were fierce.

I had just finished teaching an art class to the children.

When I walked out of the classroom, I saw a letter on my desk.

It was from Ethan Hale.

I didn’t know how Ethan found out where I was, but every now and then, he sent me supplies and mentioned Nathan’s recent condition in his letters.

I opened the envelope.

There were only a few lines on the paper.

“Miss Hale, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t call you Vivian anymore. Nathan is sick.”

“GI bleed. It’s serious. The doctors said years of chronic alcohol abuse, combined with irregular eating habits, led to surgery. Nearly half of his stomach was removed.”

“He lives in your old bridal suite every day now. He doesn’t go anywhere.”

“The day you left, he arranged that room exactly the way it had been two years ago.

“Every night, he talks to the empty air.”

“Miss Hale, he really knows he was wrong. Could you… come back to see him?”

I looked at the letter.

Then I calmly folded it and put it into the drawer.

I walked to the window and looked at the children running across the playground.

The sunlight was harsh, stinging my eyes.

Did Nathan Reed know he was wrong?

Maybe.

He finally understood that some things, once lost, could never be found again.

He finally understood that the control he had been so proud of was worthless in the face of someçne

truly giving up.

His pain now was the seed he had planted with his own hands.

I would not go back to see him.

Never.

Two years ago, when the divorce decree was sent to the school, I was mixing acrylics for the

children.

The wind was strong that day.

I tucked the final judgment into a book.

My life had already begun again.

And he could only remain trapped in a prison called regret, repeating day after day the things I had once done for him.

Tortured by memory.

Dying alone.

A gust of wind blew past, rolling yellow sand across the playground.

I turned, picked up a piece of chalk, and prepared the next lesson

On the blackboard, I wrote one word.

Life.

Life goes on.