She looked at me again, this time holding my gaze longer. There was no anger in her eyes yet, only disappointment. And somehow, that hurt far more.
“We didn’t raise you to be perfect,” she continued, her voice calm but cutting. “But we raised you to be honest. To be accountable. To know where the line is.”
She shook her head slowly. “What you did wasn’t just a mistake, Adrian. It was a choice. One you made knowingly.”
I didn’t defend myself. I couldn’t.
“With who?” she demanded. “Someone from your office? Someone you met on a project?”
I hesitated for a moment. “Someone from college.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “What? Did William and Astrid know about this?”
“They found out after it happened,” I said.
Her voice rose. “Who is she, Adrian?”
“Phoebe,” I answered, the name sitting heavy on my tongue.
My mother went still. “Phoebe…” she repeated, searching her memory. “Who is this Phoebe? I’ve never heard you mention her.”
I exhaled quietly. “We weren’t close. Just someone I knew back then.”
“The past,” she said quietly. “You went back to the past when you should have been building a future.”
Her breath hitched. “God, Adrian… what were you thinking? Why would you do that?”
She shook her head slowly, disbelief and pain mixing in her voice. “You chose Elena. You made her your wife. That should have anchored you. That should have been enough.”
Then she turned toward Avery, who had remained silent. “You knew about this, Avery?” she asked, her voice breaking.
Avery nodded slowly.
My mother closed her eyes, tears finally spilling over. “How long?” she asked, opening them again, now looking at me. “And since when?”
“When Elena was pregnant,” I said quietly. “It didn’t last long. Less than a year.”
Her face broke.
“While she was pregnant?” she repeated slowly, as if testing whether the words were real “Adrian... as your mother, and as a woman... I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
She covered her face briefly, then lowered her hands, her eyes red but sharp.
“Elena carried this alone,” she said, her voice barely holding. “At the most vulnerable time of her life.”
She shook her head again. “I treat patients every day. I know exactly what stress and betrayal can do to a pregnant woman’s body.”
Her voice cracked for the first time. “And you let her go through that alone.”
She drew in a deep breath, forcing herself to steady. “If I had known back then...” her voice trailed off. “If I had known...” She didn’t finish the sentence, but in my mother’s eyes, I saw more than anger. I saw guilt.
I remained silent. I didn’t defend myself. I didn’t deny it. There was nothing I could say to justify it. Nothing that would soften it. Because everything she felt—disappointment, anger, grief—was something I should have faced from the beginning.
It showed me just how deep the wound I’d left behind really was.
—?—
Elena
