Damian
Lila turned one today.
I sat alone in the corner of my office, holding the gift I knew I wasn’t allowed to send, a plush bear with a velvet ribbon tied around its neck and a voice recorder sewn inside. My voice, telling her I loved her. That I always would.
It was the third one I’d tried to send. The first never left my apartment. The second my father intercepted at the post office. The third… I kept hidden in my desk drawer, like a buried apology no one would ever hear.
The firm had scheduled a meeting in central London that morning, one I couldn’t escape. A partner acquisition pitch with a corporation whose board favored grand gestures and private lunches at one of the city’s largest retail centers.
So that’s why I was at the mall.
Not to shop.
Not to be seen.
And certainl
