My Husband Stayed With His Childhood Love—Our Daughter Called Him Stranger Chapter 08

My Husband Stayed With His Childhood Love—Our Daughter Called Him Stranger Chapter 08

Nathaniel resigned from his position as lead designer at the architecture firm.

He gave up everything—his shares, his profit share, his project bonuses. All of it.

His business partner sat across from him in the conference room, watching him sign the resignation papers.

Finally, he couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Nathaniel, just think about this. If you want to resign, fine—but at least…”

“No need.” He set the pen down.

And when he walked out of the conference room, every gaze in that hallway trailed after him.

—

The first rainy day, he drove back to that intersection.

The place where, on that stormy night, he had pulled Grace out of the SUV and shoved her back into Sylvie’s arms.

He pulled over, stepped out.

The rain was coming down in sheets.

He didn’t bother with an umbrella. Just stood there. For two hours.

By the time his assistant found him, his fever had climbed to one hundred and two degrees.

“Mr. Beckett! Get back in the car, please. If you stay out here any longer, you’re going to collapse!”

Nathaniel didn’t move.

“Mr. Beckett!”

“Go on. I’ll be fine.”

The assistant eventually left.

Nathaniel still stood in the rain.

That night, he was hospitalized with pneumonia.

He checked himself out the very next day.

—

Then the search began.

Nathaniel hired seven private investigation firms.

He traveled across the country, searching rehabilitation centers, special education schools, and children’s hospitals.

He went to small towns in the south, to the snow-covered plains of the north, to the remote mountain villages of the west.

Once, a lead came in—Sylvie and Grace, spotted in a village in the southwest.

He took an overnight train—twelve hours—then a bus, then a motorcycle.

When he finally got there, a mudslide had taken out half the road.

His vehicle was buried beneath mud and debris. He crawled out covered in cuts and bruises.

The only thing still clutched in his hand was Grace’s old child safety ID bracelet.

He’d spent three years hunting through flea markets in city after city to find it.

The plastic clasp was broken, the strap faded.

But he cleaned it off, carefully, and kept it in the pocket right over his chest.

—

People in their social circle began talking about him.

“I heard Nathaniel’s lost it. Quit his job, sold his house, now he’s living in some rental.”

“He’s been looking for his wife and kid for, what, almost two years now? Traveled all over the country. No income, savings all gone.”

“What a joke. Why didn’t he realize what he had when they were still around?”

The gossip got back to him, eventually. He didn’t even blink.

Every day, he sat at the desk in his cramped rental, a huge map spread before him, nearly every inch of it covered in red circles and X’s.

Every circle marked a place he had searched. Every X marked another dead end.

Beside the map, Grace’s drawing. The one he could never stop looking at.

[That man killed me in the rain.]

He stared at those words for entire nights without moving.

—

Two years later, autumn.

Nathaniel sat alone on the balcony of his rental. Unshaven. Gaunt. He looked twice his age.

An unopened bottle of water rested in his hand.

His phone vibrated. A news notification.

He almost ignored it. Then name in the headline stopped him cold.

[Illustrator Sylvie Simmons Wins Global Children’s Literature Award for Her New Book, The Silent Star]

The article featured a photo. It was taken at a book signing event.

A woman stood behind the signing table in a pale blue sweater, her hair longer than before and tucked behind one ear.

She was looking down, signing a book for a young reader, her profile soft. Thinner than he remembered. But softer, too.

Beside her, a little girl—a little girl who had grown so much taller.

She wore a white dress, her face tipped up toward the woman, her eyes curving into crescents.

She wasn’t speaking. But her smile was radiant.

Nathaniel’s finger pressed so hard against the screen that his knuckles turned white.

The water bottle crumpled in his grip, water spilling from the cap and running over his hand. He didn’t even feel it.

His gaze was locked on the little girl’s face. Two years. She’d grown so much.

He read the article many times.

Then he began searching for information about the signing event.

Three days later, he bought a plane ticket.