Chapter 9 - THE UNFINISHED TOWERThe winter weather hit Oak Creek hard over the weekend. Freezing rain turned into heavy, thick snow that covered the quiet town in a blanket of white.
Adrien stayed in his small, rented two-room apartment above the local pharmacy on Main Street. He didn't call her. He didn't send lawyers. He sat at his window, looking down at the snow falling over the rooftops, feeling the profound, crushing weight of his empty hands.
On Sunday morning, a knock sounded at his apartment door.
Adrien opened it, expecting his landlord or a courier.
No one was standing in the hallway. But resting on the welcome mat was a small cardboard box, wet from melted snow.
Adrien knelt down and picked it up. Inside was a single object: a crude, lopsided airplane made of popsicle sticks and cardboard, held together by thick, messy blobs of dried craft glue.
Glued to the side of the wing was a small scrap of notebook paper with shaky, six-year-old handwriting:
May you like
You didn't hold it until it dried.
Adrien clutched the fragile piece of cardboard to his chest, standing alone in the quiet hallway, his shoulders shaking as he wept for the first time in thirty years.
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