“Sorry?” William snapped. “That’s it? You think that fixes this?! Look at what you’ve done! What the hell is that supposed to be?!”
He hadn’t even looked at the drawing yet.
His anger was fixed on the boy.
“Sir… please… just look…” the child whispered through tears. “I thought… maybe you’d like it…”
“Like it? You—”
William’s voice stopped.
Mid-sentence.
His eyes shifted… finally landing on the wall.
And everything changed.
The belt slipped from his hand.
His face—twisted with anger—went still.
Then pale.
Then… shattered.
It wasn’t random scribbles.
With nothing but charcoal and chalk, the boy had created something breathtaking.
A portrait.
A woman’s face.
Soft, lifelike, filled with light and shadow… as if drawn not from imagination, but from memory.
Her eyes looked alive—gentle, tired, full of love.
And above her left eyebrow…
A small scar.
William’s lips trembled.
“No… that’s impossible…” he whispered.
It was her.
Elizabeth.
The only woman he had ever truly loved.
The one he lost.
His knees gave out.
He collapsed in front of the wall, as if all the strength had been drained from his body.
Tears—years of buried, locked-away tears—finally broke free.
“Elizabeth…” he choked.
The boy stared, confused.