Her smile widened slightly. “Good. You deserve peace, Adrian.”

I sat down on the bench beside her. We didn’t talk for a long while — just listened to the wind moving through the magnolia leaves above us.

For the first time in years there was no noise in my life. Nobody scheming. Nobody plotting. Nobody laughing at me.

I looked at the woman beside me, deep in her book, and understood the simplest thing I’d learned from any of it.

The people who actually matter never need diamonds to recognize what you’re worth.

THE END.