Chapter 4 - THE WAVE TO THE DARKNESS
Out in the main office, Hannah picked up her cloth and resumed polishing the far edge of the long conference table, her back turned to the conference room wall.
Ellie sat up slightly higher in her stroller, her brown eyes drifting away from her mother and wandering across the vast, luxurious room.
She looked toward the large panel of dark tinted glass opposite her stroller.
To an adult, the dark glass looked like a solid, black decorative mirror reflecting the warm lights of the Christmas tree. But to little Ellie, whose eyes caught the subtle outline of a tall silhouette sitting still in the darkness behind the tint, the glass wasn't empty.
Ellie stared directly at the spot where Ethan was sitting.
Hannah stopped polishing, turning around to check on her daughter. She noticed Ellie staring intently at the dark glass panel.
"What are you looking at, Peanut?" Hannah asked with a soft smile, walking over to adjust the wool blanket over Ellie's lap. "Is that your reflection? You see a pretty baby in the mirror?"
Ellie didn't look at her mother.
Instead, the one-year-old child slowly raised her tiny, soft right hand, opened her fingers, and began to wave enthusiastically toward the dark, tinted glass.
Hannah chuckled quietly, leaning down to kiss Ellie's forehead. "Silly girl. You're waving at yourself."
Inside the conference room, Ethan Whitmore went completely, utterly motionless.
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He sat in the dark chair, looking through the one-way glass, directly into the wide, sparkling brown eyes of the little girl. She was looking straight at him—not at her reflection, but at him—waving her tiny hand with pure, unreserved warmth.
Ethan felt a sudden, violent jolt in his chest, as if a long-frozen wire inside his heart had suddenly snapped under extreme tension.
