Aristotle’s entire being stilled.
He had waited for this news for nineteen years. As time passed, the flames died little by little, the heart grew more numb, until the very thought of it was no different from a pipe dream. But today, news of it coming true reached him and plunged him into a torrent of feelings.
A long while later, he finally muttered under his breath, “When… When will they be back?”
Jackson closed the distance between them and gave the young man a light, comforting pat on the shoulders. “Not so soon, I bet; not when your mother has just woken up and is in need of some time to recover. She did sleep for nineteen years, you know. So maybe after she’s recuperated enough for a while…” he answered. “We’ve waited for nineteen years for this, right? What’s waiting for just a little bit more compared to that? The most important thing for you to do is to manage the company to the best of your abilities. That’s the way to not disappoint your father’s expectation.”
Aristotle said nothing. Had Arianne never suffered that tragic incident in the first place, nineteen years of his life would have been spared from much of the weight he had experienced.
A month and more later, Arianne and Mark had returned.
Being in a coma and bedridden for so long, many of Arianne’s motor functions were still recovering from years-long inertia, so she was wheelchair-bound for the time being. One could tell that full recovery was only going to be a long journey, but the fact that she finally woke up from her sleep was victory in and of itself.
The first thing she did after descending the plane was to take in a couple of deep breaths. The city she had left for so long—Arianne was back in its embrace again!
It was at the crux of summer that day, so Mark had kindly prepared a sunbonnet and a pair of shades for her. Lowering himself to her eye-level, he muttered softly in her ear, “We’re going home, Ari. You will be seeing your son very soon… Are you happy?”
Nineteen years were a beast that had carved changes to even the city she used to be so familiar with. Everywhere she looked, the metropolis greeted her with another foreign sight, though the strangeness did not put out even a lick of jubilance in her heart. “Of course I’m happy! Oh, Mark, I bet he’s about as tall as you now, isn’t he? He’s grown so big… without his mother… I didn’t perform my duties as his mother at all. What happens if this makes us estranged? Does he… hate me?”
“No, he doesn’t. He knows why,” Mark replied comfortingly. “Come on. Time to go home.”
On their journey home, Arianne took in the sights flitting by outside… and Mark, sitting so close to her inside.
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