“I hid the truth too.”
Aria covered her face.
“I ruined our family.”
“The adults around you made choices. You didn’t make them for us.”
She lowered her hands.
“Did you really search?”
I opened my bag of reports, clippings, letters, and investigator receipts.
“I ruined our family.”
“I never stopped.”
Aria picked up a clipping, then reached for my hand.
Shaun refused to meet me.
I didn’t pressure him.
I mailed him the watch.
My note read:
“It still loses four minutes a day. I kept winding it anyway.”
***
“I never stopped.”
He called three days later.
“You really wound this every week?”
“Every Sunday.”
“Aria says you searched.”
“I did.”
“Then you weren’t very good at it.”
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t.”
