Two days later, the doorbell rang.
Adelina was in her room, staring at the calendar. March 17th. Her heart jumped into her throat.
"Adelina!" Marlene's voice, artificially sweet, called up the stairs. "Someone's here for you!"
She smoothed the front of her simple sweater, her hands not quite steady. She took a breath, held it, and let it out slowly. Then she walked down the stairs.
A man was standing in the living room, his back to her. He was tall, with broad shoulders that filled out his dark coat. He was shaking Walter's hand.
As he turned, Adelina froze on the bottom step.
It was him.
The face from the hospital. Younger, without the deep lines of grief and exhaustion, but unmistakably the same. The same sharp jaw, the same intense gray eyes, the same mouth that looked like it never smiled.
Douglass Ward.
His gaze passed over Marlene and Walter and settled on her. It was a polite, detached look. The look you give a stranger. "Hello," he said, his voice as low and steady as she remembered. "I'm Douglass Ward."
Her throat was tight. The memory of his hand on hers as she died, the warmth of it, was a phantom sensation in her own palm.
"Hello," she managed to say, her voice barely a whisper.
Marlene jumped in, her voice oozing charm. "Douglass is Elena Ward's stepson! He's come all the way from Washington to meet you. He needs help with his children."
Adelina saw Douglass's brow furrow, just for a second. A flicker of confusion.
His tone was carefully neutral as he corrected her. "My stepmother arranged for me to meet a nanny candidate," he said, his eyes moving from Adelina to a preening Beryl, who was now standing nearby. A flicker of understanding, and then annoyance, crossed his face. "My stepmother told me I was meeting a nanny candidate. This feels... like something else entirely."
Adelina understood instantly. He had no idea. Elena Ward had set this up as a blind date, a marriage interview, but she had told him he was just picking up a nanny.
"Well, it's good to get to know people!" Marlene chirped, trying to smooth over the awkwardness.
Walter slid a folder across the coffee table. "Here," he grunted.
Inside were the legal papers, officially dissolving the adoption. Adelina picked them up, her fingers tracing the notarized seal and Walter's angry scrawl of a signature. He pushed a thick envelope next to it. The money. She didn't bother to count it.
She tucked both into her handbag. A weight she had carried her entire life lifted from her shoulders.
Douglass watched the entire exchange, his face unreadable. He observed the cold, transactional nature of the deal. This wasn't a family sending a daughter off; it was a business closing an account. His initial assessment of the situation shifted. This girl wasn't just leaving home; she was escaping.
Beryl, bored now that the attention wasn't on her, hooked her arm through Garret's, who had just appeared in the doorway. "We're leaving," she announced.
Garret's eyes met Adelina's for a brief, complicated moment. She looked right through him. Her attention was a magnet, pulled only to the tall, quiet man standing in the center of the room.
Douglass noticed her stare. He met her gaze, and for a second, the air crackled. He was the first to look away.
"I'll be in touch about her travel arrangements," he said to Walter, his tone all business.
Marlene followed him to the door, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper Adelina could still hear. "So, what exactly is it you do at the Department of Defense? What's the pay like for a man at your level?"
Douglass's response was short and evasive, but Adelina saw the muscle in his jaw jump. He wasn't just annoyed. He was on alert.
The front door closed, and Adelina was left alone in the living room, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She had seen him. It was real.
She pulled the legal document from her bag, the crisp paper cool against her skin. A slow smile, the first genuine smile in a lifetime, spread across her face.
Adelina Bell was free.
