Chapter 5 — Peter’s Blue Bicycle
Robert’s silence changed the room.
Margaret stepped closer.
“Dad.”
“That was decades ago.”
“Where did Peter get the bicycle?”
Robert looked toward the floor.
Daniel knew the answer before he spoke.
“Peter bought it.”
Margaret’s face went pale.
“With the missing money?”
Robert nodded.
Margaret stared at him.
“You knew?”
“Not when Samuel left.”
Robert discovered the truth several months later.
Peter had been taking cash from the kitchen drawer.
He wanted a bicycle his parents refused to buy.
He secretly purchased it from an older teenager.
Then lied and said it was a gift.
Robert eventually found the seller.
Peter confessed.
“So you contacted Samuel?” Daniel asked.
Robert closed his eyes.
“No.”
Margaret stared.
“Why not?”
“Because Peter was thirteen.”
“Samuel was seventeen!”
Robert flinched.
Margaret’s voice broke.
“You protected your son by letting Samuel carry the accusation?”
Robert shook his head.
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“It sounds very simple.”
Then Daniel asked about the locket.
“Peter took that too?”
Robert said no.
He never learned what happened to it.
“Then you still believed Samuel stole something.”
Robert nodded.
That became his justification.
Maybe Samuel didn’t take the cash.
But the empty jewelry pouch remained unexplained.
Robert convinced himself Samuel had probably stolen the locket.
Therefore…
perhaps forcing him out had still been justified.
Margaret stared at her father.
“Did you ever ask Samuel about the pouch again?”
Robert shook his head.
“No.”
Then a voice came from the doorway.
“You should have.”
Everyone turned.
An elderly man stood there.
Dark gray suit.
Silver hair.
One hand resting against the doorframe.
Margaret knew him immediately.
Even after thirty-two years.
“Samuel.”