It was a portrait.
Of me.
Exactly as I had been that night years ago—cold eyes, a hardened face, a door closing behind me.
But there was another detail.
Barely visible beside the child was a painted hand.
My hand.
Reaching forward… but not quite touching him.
“I never finished this painting,” Adrian explained quietly. “For years I kept working on it, trying to understand something.”
“What?” I whispered.
“Whether that man hated the child… or if he was just broken.”
I couldn’t speak.
Tears slid down my face before I even realized it.
“I didn’t know you could paint,” I murmured.
He gave a small, sad smile.
“You didn’t know how to love either,” he said gently. “Looks like we both learned a little late.”
We stood in silence for a long time, the weight of ten years hanging between us.
Finally, I forced myself to ask the question burning in my chest.
“How can I fix what I did?”
Adrian sighed.
“You can’t fix it. But you can listen.”
He walked to the desk and pulled out a sealed folder.
Inside was an old envelope, yellowed with age.
“My mother gave me this before she passed away,” he explained. “I didn’t open it until recently.”
My hands trembled as he unfolded the paper inside.
It was a medical document.