Chapter 7 - The Reunion
The afternoon light poured through the tall windows of the hospital room when the door opened softly.
Juny and Tess stood on the threshold, dressed in matching dark blue wool coats and small red boots. Mrs. Gable stood behind them, giving them a gentle nudge forward.
For a long second, nobody moved. Eleanor sat up in her bed, her arms outstretched, her eyes overflowing with tears.
"Mommy," Tess whispered.
Then both girls ran across the room, their small boots thumping against the floor. They scrambled up onto the side of the bed, throwing their arms around Eleanor's neck. Eleanor pulled them tight against her chest, burying her face in their hair, weeping quietly, kissing their foreheads, their cheeks, their hands.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Eleanor whispered over and over again, holding them as if she might float away if she let go. "Mommy is so sorry."
"We stayed on the bench," Juny said, her small face pressed against Eleanor's shoulder. "We counted to ten thousand. And then Mr. Callum came."
Eleanor looked up over Juny's shoulder at Callum, who was standing near the window, watching them with a calm, quiet warmth in his eyes.
"He took care of us, Mommy," Tess said, looking up at her mother. "He gave us pancakes. And books."
"I know, baby," Eleanor said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I know."
Over the next two weeks, Eleanor remained in the private recovery suite, her strength gradually returning under the constant care of top specialists. Juny and Tess spent their days at the Pierce estate, where Callum had arranged for a private tutor to help them catch up on the schoolwork they had missed over the previous tumultuous months.
Callum visited the hospital every evening after work. The conversations between him and Eleanor grew longer, drifting from legal updates to personal stories. He learned about her passion for teaching, her love for art, and her memories of David. She learned about his quiet, solitary life—how he had built a global financial empire after losing his own parents at a young age, and how he had spent years surrounded by wealth, yet completely detached from anything that truly mattered.
"You built an ocean around yourself, Callum," Eleanor said to him late one evening, watching the city lights from her window.
"I built a wall," Callum corrected her gently. "It seemed safer."
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"And what happens when someone climbs over the wall?" she asked softly.
Callum looked at her, his expression unreadable for a moment before a small, genuine smile touched his lips. "Then you make sure the house inside is warm enough for them to stay."
