Chapter 13
Elliot became afraid of the garden.
Not forever.
At first.
If someone suggested going outside after lunch, he asked whether Agatha was there.
If his monitor chirped for an ordinary reason, he reached immediately for water.
Mrs. Parker began keeping a small bottle within his reach.
Dr. Simmons approved.
A child therapist named Dr. Hannah Cole began seeing him weekly.
She warned Conrad not to turn the column into a symbol every time Elliot looked at it.
“Children often move forward faster when adults stop staring at the wound for them.”
Conrad looked through the playroom window.
“I’m staring?”
“Constantly.”
He did not argue.
The broken chain was removed.
The stone column stayed.
Hannah recommended that too.
“Don’t turn the garden into forbidden territory.”
So Conrad left it alone.
New planters replaced the shattered ones.
No hidden envelopes.
No secret business.
Just herbs.
Weeks later, Elliot walked outside with Mrs. Parker.
He stopped ten feet from the column.
Conrad watched from the terrace but did not approach.
Elliot looked at it.
Then at his father.
“Chain gone?”
“Yes.”
“Agatha gone?”
“Yes.”
“Julian?”
“Yes.”
Elliot thought about that.
Then pointed toward the herb table.
“Can I smell mint?”
Conrad almost laughed.
“Apparently.”
The boy walked past the column.
Nothing dramatic happened.
That was the point.
Later that week, Conrad met Teresa again.
She brought her son, now twenty-one.
The young man had been eleven when his father died at Riverfront.
He had attended college partly because of Agatha’s hidden payments.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel,” he said.
Conrad understood.
“Neither do I.”
“She helped us.”
“Yes.”
“She also wanted us quiet.”
“Yes.”
“Can both be true?”
Conrad thought of Agatha.
Then Julian.
Then the medical foundation.
“Yes.”
The young man looked frustrated.
“That makes it harder.”
“It should.”
Conrad had spent years in a world that preferred simple categories.
Loyal.
Disloyal.
Family.
Enemy.
Good.
Bad.
Elliot’s case had forced him into something more adult.
People could do genuine good for corrupted reasons.
They could love someone and still endanger others for them.
They could regret harm without becoming safe again.
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That complexity did not weaken accountability.
It made accountability more accurate.
