The sun beat down on the construction site, baking the dust and the sweat on Caspian Hawthorne’s back. He lifted another sheet of drywall from the stack, his muscles straining with the unfamiliar effort. The man beside him, a wiry carpenter named Sal, grunted in approval.
“You’re getting the hang of it, boss.”
Caspian wasn’t a boss here. He was just another volunteer, another pair of hands rebuilding a community center that had burned down last winter. He wore worn jeans and a faded t-shirt, his skin tanned from a year of working outdoors. He was leaner, the arrogance stripped from his posture as surely as the power had been stripped from his name.
He had walked away from Hawthorne Industries a year ago. Walked away from the suits, the boardrooms, the entire world he had once commanded.
He preferred the ache in his shoulders to the hollow echo in his soul.
That evening, his apartment was quiet. It was a small, functional space, a world away from the cold grandeur of the Hawthorne estate. The furniture was simple, the walls bare. He had just finished a meager dinner when a soft knock came at the door.
Eleanora Hawthorne stood in the hallway, her expression unreadable. She surveyed his spartan surroundings with a sweep of her sharp eyes, a faint nod her only comment.
“Grandmother.”
“Caspian.” She walked past him into the living room, her posture as regal as ever. She did not sit. “I saw a poster today. For Lyra’s concert. Sold out.”
He said nothing. He knew. He followed her career from a distance, a ghost haunting the edges of her success.
“His birthday is on Saturday,” Eleanora stated, her voice softening almost imperceptibly. “He will be one year old.”
Caspian looked down at his hands, calloused and stained with paint. A year. A year of silence. A year of penance.
“I know.”
Eleanora watched him, her gaze piercing. “A year is a long time to prove a thing. Now you must decide what it is you’ve proven.”
She didn’t need to say more. She had delivered her message, a catalyst dropped into the still waters of his exile. She placed a small, wrapped gift on his table. “For Rowan,” she said, and then she was gone.
Alone, the silence of the apartment pressed in on him. He walked to a simple wooden chest in the corner of his room. He unlocked it with a small key he wore on a chain around his neck.
Inside, nestled in felt lining, was a thick stack of envelopes.
`Caspian’s unsent letters to Rowan`.
He lifted them out. There were dozens, one for each week of the past year. A chronicle of his regret, a testament to a love that had no outlet. He took a fresh sheet of paper and a pen, his movements a familiar ritual.
My Dearest Rowan, he began. Today your great-grandmother reminded me that you will soon be one year old. A whole year of your life has passed, and I have missed all of it. I missed your first smile, the first time you rolled over, the first time you held your mother’s hand and knew it was hers. I miss it all because I had to. Because the man I was had no right to be your father. I spend every day trying to become a man who does.
He wrote of the community center, of the satisfaction of building something real with his own hands. He wrote of his hopes for his son, that he would be kind and strong, that he would have his mother’s heart and her incredible spirit.
He sealed the letter and placed it on top of the stack. This was the only way he had allowed himself to be a father. In secret. In silence.
But Eleanora’s words echoed in the quiet room. What have you proven?
He had proven he could stay away. Now, he wondered if he had earned the right to ask for a single step closer.
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