Aunt Phoebe

The first time my son said her name, it sounded like nothing.

Like “Aunt Sarah” or “Aunt Melissa,” one of those honorary titles kids hand out to anyone who gives them snacks and lets them stay up five extra minutes. He was six, sticky-handed and cereal-mouthed, humming some cartoon theme song while I stood at the kitchen counter trying to remember if I’d switched the laundry before it turned into that sour, forgotten smell.

“I had so much fun at Aunt Phoebe’s,” Noah said, swinging his legs under the table like the world was perfectly normal.

I froze with the milk carton half-tilted, a white crescent climbing the rim and threatening to spill.

“Aunt… who?” I asked, and forced a laugh that didn’t belong in my mouth.

Noah didn’t even look up. “Aunt Phoebe. She has a dog. Biscuit. He can shake hands now.”

My brain tried to do the math and couldn’t find the numbers. We didn’t have an Aunt Phoebe. We didn’t have any Phoebes at all. Not in my phone, not on Christmas card lists, not in the orbit of playdates and birthday parties and polite waves at school pickup.

And then I did the one thing I never did—never invaded, never scrolled, never went looking for a reason to be hurt.

I picked up Noah’s tablet.

And my entire life cracked open in the palm of my hand.

Noah’s tablet was warm from his small fingers, the screen smudged with the kind of fingerprints only children can produce—half peanut butter, half mystery, fully permanent. I told myself I was just checking for some weird new game he’d downloaded, or making sure he hadn’t somehow purchased a thousand dollars’ worth of cartoon skins with my saved card.

The camera roll opened.

Ceiling fan. Ceiling fan again. A close-up of a Lego wheel. A screenshot of a dinosaur wearing sunglasses.

And then—

Noah, grinning so wide his cheeks almost swallowed his eyes. My husband next to him, an arm slung behind Noah like the casual, effortless dad I remembered marrying. And a blonde woman on the other side, leaning in as if they belonged together, her hand resting on my husband’s shoulder like it had memorized the shape of him.

The couch behind them was gray, modern, unfamiliar. The lighting too soft, too warm. In the background, a window framed a view of downtown buildings and strings of headlights—nothing like our quiet subdivision with its identical mailboxes and the same three dogs that barked in unison every afternoon.

I stared so hard my eyes burned.

The sound of running water upstairs reminded me my husband was showering. Getting ready for “another late night at the office.” Another “emergency.” Another crisis that only happened after dinner, after bedtime, after I’d already carried the weight of our day alone.

My hands shook. The tablet nearly slid out of my grip. I braced it against the counter like it was a live wire.

Noah crunched cereal, humming, blissfully unaware he’d just dropped a match into gasoline.

“Mom, can I have more juice?”

I flipped the tablet face down and walked to the fridge on legs that didn’t feel attached to my body. “Sure, baby.” My voice came out steady enough to fool a stranger. That steadiness scared me more than the shaking.

I poured orange juice. The stream was smooth and controlled, like my hand hadn’t just watched my entire marriage step out from behind a curtain and wave.

I sat across from Noah. “So, did you have fun at Aunt Phoebe’s this week?”

Noah’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! She let me play with Biscuit for a really long time.”

“What does her apartment look like?”

He shrugged. “It’s pretty. She has a big TV and lots of plants. And her couch is really soft. Dad says it’s nicer than ours.”

It felt like being slapped with something soft and humiliating. Nicer than ours. Like our home—my home, the one I kept running—was a joke in someone else’s living room.

“Does she have other kids over?”

“Nope. Just me,” Noah said proudly. “She said I’m special.”

The word special hit like a warning bell. Special meant secrets. Special meant chosen. Special meant you don’t tell Mommy because she wouldn’t understand.

Noah hopped down from his chair. “Can I watch TV before school?”

“Sure, baby.” My smile felt stapled on.

He ran to the living room. I picked up the tablet again.

I swiped. Another photo: Noah holding a small white dog, laughing, head tipped back. The blonde woman crouched beside him, smiling at the camera like she’d practiced it.

Swipe. Ethan leaning against a kitchen counter—her kitchen counter—coffee mug in hand, relaxed in a way I hadn’t seen in months. The posture of a man who was comfortable. Who belonged there. Who had been there many times before.

This was not “a few late nights.” This was a second life. A life with a couch and a dog and a woman who kept snacks for my son, and all of it built in the hours I thought my husband was working late because he was providing for us.

Footsteps on the stairs.

Ethan stepped into the kitchen adjusting his watch. “Morning. I’ve got that meeting at nine, so I’m heading out early.”

I didn’t turn around.

“We need to talk,” I said.

I slid the tablet across the counter. It stopped right before the edge, screen glowing between us like a verdict.

Ethan’s face changed in stages. Confusion. Recognition. Panic trying to dress up as innocence.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“Noah’s camera roll. He took it himself.”

He picked up the tablet, staring at the photo like he could will it into something harmless. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

He launched into a story that sounded rehearsed. “She’s a coworker. Phoebe. She’s been helping me with the Garrett project, and we’ve had to work late a few times, and I didn’t want to leave Noah with a sitter, so I brought him along. And he started calling her Aunt Phoebe. Kids do that.”

That stopped him, because he realized what he’d admitted—not that they were working late together, but that the visits were frequent enough for a six-year-old to assign a family title.

I took one step closer.

“He told me about her apartment,” I said quietly. “Her dog. The snacks she keeps for him. The cartoons they watch together. He said you told him her couch is nicer than ours.”

Ethan’s face went pale. “He’s exaggerating.”

“He’s six. He doesn’t exaggerate your tone. He repeats it.”

“It’s completely innocent,” he insisted. “She’s been going through a hard time. Divorce stuff. I’ve been helping her—”

“Does she put her hand on your shoulder like that with all her coworkers?”

He glanced at the photo. Swallowed.

“How long have you been sleeping with her?” I asked.

“I’m not,” he said too fast.

“Don’t lie to me. Our son has been playing with her dog while you’ve been doing what, exactly?”

Ethan stepped toward me, hands raised like he was calming something dangerous. “You’re not listening.”

“Then make me understand why my child knows more about your girlfriend than I do.”

“She’s not—” he started, then stopped, eyes closing like he couldn’t hold it anymore.

When he opened them again, they were wet. “It started as just talking,” he said quietly. “She was going through a divorce, and I was stressed about work, and we started having coffee, and it was just nice to talk to someone who understood.”

“And then?” I asked.

The silence was an answer.

“And then you started bringing our son to her apartment,” I said, voice rising, “so you could keep lying to me without paying a babysitter.”

“That’s not fair,” he said.

I laughed once—sharp and ugly. “You let our six-year-old take pictures with your mistress and you want to talk about fair.”

“Don’t call her that,” he snapped—and the protectiveness in his voice, the way it jumped out before he could stop it, was like watching a stranger wear my husband’s face. He was defending her. Reflexively, instinctively, the way you defend someone who matters to you more than the person standing in front of you.

He heard himself say it. His expression crumbled.

“Get out,” I said.

“We can fix this,” he said, reaching for my arm.

I stepped back.

“Get out. You brought our son into your lie.”

“It wasn’t like that—”

“Then what was it like?” I demanded. “You taught him to keep secrets from me. You let another woman play house with my child. You came home smelling like someone else and told me it was work. What was it like, Ethan?”

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

“This is my house too,” he tried.

“Then you’ll leave anyway. Because if you stay, I will break something neither of us can put back.”

His face twisted. “You’re going to take Noah away from me because of this?”

“You already took him,” I said, and that sentence felt like the truest thing I’d ever spoken.

Noah’s cartoon laughed in the living room. I walked past Ethan.

“Don’t do this,” he begged.

I pulled my wrist free. “You already did.”

I drove to my sister’s house because it was the only place my hands knew how to reach without thinking.

Lena opened the door before I even knocked, like she’d been expecting me her whole life. She took one look at my face and didn’t ask for details. She just stepped aside and said, “Come in.”

Noah barreled past her like it was a sleepover, already excited by the novelty.

Lena caught my eye. “What happened?”

“There’s someone,” I said, and the word tasted wrong. “He’s been taking Noah to her apartment.”

Lena’s expression hardened in a way I hadn’t seen since we were teenagers. “What.”

I handed her the tablet. She swiped through the photos, her face changing the way mine had: confusion, recognition, fury.

“Oh, I am going to set something on fire,” she said.

“Not literally.”

“Metaphorically. But I’m open to options.”

My phone was already exploding. Fifteen missed calls from Ethan. A stream of texts: Where are you? Don’t do this. You’re overreacting. Please. Please. Please.

Lena snorted. “He went from ‘you’re twisting this’ to ‘please’ in under ten minutes. That’s not remorse. That’s damage control.”

“I don’t even know what to do,” I admitted, and the admission felt like the most honest thing I’d said in months—more honest than the carefully maintained fiction of my marriage.

“Screenshots. Lawyer.” Lena slid her phone out like a weapon. “You’re going to protect your kid. And you’re going to protect yourself.”

Then my phone rang. Unknown number. Ethan’s mother, Judith.

“Ethan is beside himself,” Judith said, her voice carrying the particular clipped authority of a woman who believed her son was always the victim in every story. “He says you threw him out and took Noah. That’s not acceptable.”

“He’s been having an affair,” I said. “He’s been taking Noah to her apartment for months.”

Silence. Then Judith exhaled like I’d told her the weather was bad.

“Well,” she said, “that’s certainly unfortunate. These things happen. Marriage is complicated. Divorce would be so hard on Noah. On you. You’d have to work full-time. Child care. Everything alone.”

“I already do everything alone,” I snapped.

“My son works very hard to provide for you,” Judith said, her tone sharpening into the blade it always was underneath the silk.

“Your son has a girlfriend,” I said. “And my child thinks she’s family.”

Lena snatched the phone from my hand. “She has photos. And if you call again trying to guilt her into taking him back, you’ll hear from her lawyer.”

She hung up and handed the phone back like it was contaminated.

“That,” Lena said, “is why people stay stuck. Not because they don’t know the truth. Because the truth gets wrapped in guilt and tradition and ‘think about the children’ until you can’t breathe.”

That night, while Noah slept in Lena’s guest room under a blanket covered in cartoon sharks, Lena handed me a glass of water and sat beside me on the couch.

“You’re in shock,” she said.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

Lena snorted. “You’re a mom. Your definition of fine is ‘still breathing while the house burns.'”

My phone buzzed. A voicemail from Ethan, his voice familiar and wrong: “Please. Just talk to me. I never meant for any of this to happen. You stopped caring about me months ago. What was I supposed to do?”

Lena’s face hardened. “Screenshot. Save. Send to the lawyer. He’s building a narrative. That you pushed him away. That he was lonely. That he had no choice.”

“I didn’t push him away,” I whispered.

“I know. But he’s going to say you did. So you document. You don’t argue. You document.”

I did what she said. Screenshot. Save. Forward. Each click felt like hammering a nail into something dead.

The lawyer’s name was Patricia Hale. Sharp gray hair, sharper eyes, the kind of calm that comes from having seen every version of human betrayal.

She listened to everything without interrupting. When I finished, she folded her hands.

“Indiana is a no-fault divorce state,” she said. “The affair will matter emotionally, but legally, the court doesn’t care why the marriage ended. It cares about the child.”

“He brought our son to his girlfriend’s apartment for months without telling me,” I said.

“Unless you can prove that environment was harmful, the court may see it as poor judgment,” Patricia said. “What matters is stability. Who handles school? Doctors? Bedtime? Who is the primary caregiver?”

“I am,” I said instantly.

“Then we build your case on that. And we document everything.”

I drove home from that meeting feeling hollow. I’d always believed truth mattered—that if someone hurt you badly enough, the world would point at them and say, Yes. You’re wrong.

But the world runs on paperwork. The law doesn’t care about betrayal. It cares about bedtime.

Two nights later, while Lena cooked spaghetti and Noah colored at the table, I sat beside him and tried to ask questions without turning them into grenades.

“Hey, buddy. Can I ask you something about Aunt Phoebe?”

Noah’s crayon paused. His eyes went wary. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, baby. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Did Dad ever tell you not to talk about her?”

Noah’s shoulders lifted in a shrug that looked too heavy for a six-year-old. “He said it was our special secret.”

The air went cold.

“Did he say why?”

“He said sometimes daddies and mommies need their own friends. And you wouldn’t understand.”

My throat tightened so hard it hurt. “Did you do things there you don’t usually do? Like stay up late?”

Noah’s face brightened. “We watched the dinosaur movie! The scary one you said I’m too young for. But Dad said I was brave enough.”

“Did it scare you?”

He hesitated. Then whispered, “I had a bad dream. But Dad said big boys don’t get scared.”

Something in me broke cleanly. I pulled Noah into my lap, and he melted against me.

“You can always tell me if something scares you,” I whispered into his hair. “Even if someone says you shouldn’t be scared.”

Noah’s voice got small. “Dad’s gonna be mad.”

“He won’t be mad at you. Dad made grown-up choices. Not you.”

Later that night, my phone rang. A woman’s voice, hesitant but steady. “Is this Noah’s mom? My name is Vanessa Miller. I work with your husband. I think you should know some things.”

Vanessa had suspected Ethan and Phoebe for a while—leaving together early, vague excuses, client meetings that didn’t exist. “I saw them getting into Phoebe’s car once,” she said. “Your son was in the back seat. I assumed you knew.”

“Would you be willing to provide a statement for my lawyer?” I asked.

“That’s why I called,” she said.

Three days later, Lena burst into the guest room. “Have you seen his post?”

A photo of Ethan and Noah from last summer—both grinning, sunburned, happy. The caption: Missing my little guy more than words can say. Being separated from your child is the hardest thing a parent can go through. Hoping we can all find a way back to being a family again.

The comments were pouring in: Stay strong, man. Praying for you. Kids need their fathers.

My phone buzzed as friends messaged me: Is everything okay? What happened?

He was painting me as the villain—borrowing Noah’s innocence for sympathy while the whole internet assumed I was the problem.

“Screenshot. Save. Send to Patricia,” Lena said. “He doesn’t get to rewrite this.”

I did. Then I turned off my phone, because the weight of being watched felt unbearable.

Patricia called the next week, her voice sharpened. “The phone records came through. You need to come in.”

She slid a thick stack across her desk. Pages and pages of texts between Ethan and Phoebe Brennan, March through August, certain lines highlighted in yellow like warning tape.

I scanned the first page. Casual plans. Dinner. Complaints about work. Normal enough to explain away. Then I flipped to the next page and my stomach dropped through the floor.

Bringing Noah over Saturday. He’s excited to see Jasper again. Can’t wait. It’s good practice for when we have our own. He’s so good with him. You’re going to be an amazing dad someday. I already am one. Just wish I could do it full-time.

My hands went numb. When we have our own. They were planning a future together—a future that included my son as a trial run and me as the obstacle standing in the way.

Patricia watched my face carefully. “Keep reading.”

I flipped pages like I couldn’t stop, like I needed the pain to fully map itself before I could navigate it.

Noah asked why he can’t tell his mom about you. I told him some things are just for us to know. Our special time.

My throat closed. There it was. Not Noah’s confused retelling, but Ethan’s own words, typed with his own thumbs, describing exactly how he’d taught our son to lie for him.

Noah said his mom doesn’t let him have soda. I gave him one anyway. He was so happy. You’re the fun dad. Someone has to be.

The casual cruelty of that exchange—the way they’d turned my parenting into a punchline, the way they’d made me the boring one, the strict one, the one Noah needed rescuing from—burned through the numbness like acid.

And then: Better not buy him a toy. She’ll ask where it came from.

He knew it was wrong. He knew he was hiding it. It wasn’t a man who’d stumbled into an emotional connection. It was calculated concealment with operational security—the kind of thinking that requires planning, awareness, and the deliberate choice to keep going anyway.

Patricia tapped the highlighted lines. “This is what we emphasize. Not the affair itself. The deception involving your child. The secret-keeping. The undermining. The pattern.”

Something shifted in me—not relief, not yet, but a solidness where the numbness had been. Like stepping onto ground after weeks of treading water.

The truth wasn’t just in my gut anymore. It was on paper. It had timestamps. It had his words. And his words couldn’t be explained away with “you’re overreacting” or “it was innocent” or “you don’t understand.”

That night, after Noah fell asleep, I sat at Lena’s kitchen table and stared at the stack of printed pages.

It felt like holding proof of gravity. You could deny it all you want, but the fall still happened.

Mediation was in a beige corporate building downtown. Everything smelled like toner and the carpet was always slightly damp.

Ethan was already in the conference room, sitting next to his attorney, Glenn Fitzgerald. He didn’t look at me.

The mediator, Diana Worth, had steel-gray hair and the calm of someone who’d watched hundreds of families split open.

“Mr. Callaway’s attorney submitted a proposal for equal parenting time, fifty-fifty,” Diana said. “Mrs. Callaway’s attorney is seeking primary custody with supervised visitation.”

Glenn cleared his throat. “Mr. Callaway has been an involved, loving father—”

Patricia slid the stack of highlighted texts across the table. “These document bringing the child to Ms. Brennan’s residence without informing his wife, coaching the child to keep secrets, and undermining parenting decisions.”

Diana read in silence for several minutes. The hum of the air conditioning was the loudest sound in the room.

“Mr. Callaway,” Diana said finally. “Did you instruct your son not to tell his mother about Ms. Brennan?”

“I didn’t instruct him,” Ethan said quickly. “I just said it was our special time.”

“Did you tell him it was a secret?”

“I didn’t want to confuse him.”

Patricia’s voice was calm but deadly. “The situation was an extramarital affair. One that involved a six-year-old child placed in the care of a woman his mother had never met, never vetted, and never consented to.”

Glenn tried to reframe. “Ms. Brennan is a responsible adult with no criminal record—”

“Your client’s personal life became relevant the moment he involved his son in it,” Patricia said. “The texts show coaching a child to keep secrets, undermining the mother’s parenting authority, and creating a parallel domestic environment without disclosure. This isn’t about the affair. It’s about the child.”

“Did you discuss having children with Ms. Brennan?” Diana asked.

Ethan hesitated. His lawyer whispered. He swallowed.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“And did you discuss introducing your son to Ms. Brennan with your wife?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

His face hardened like he couldn’t help himself. “Because I knew she’d overreact.”

The words hung in the air. I didn’t even have to respond. Diana wrote something down. The scratch of her pen sounded like a verdict.

Glenn asked for a recess. Through the glass, I watched Ethan gesture wildly, voice rising. Glenn looked exhausted, rubbing his temple like Ethan was a headache that had grown teeth.

Patricia poured water. “He’s making it worse,” she murmured. “Every time he speaks, he proves the pattern.”

They returned fifteen minutes later. Ethan’s face was blotchy, eyes red. Glenn looked like he’d aged a year.

“Mr. Callaway will agree to supervised visitation for six months,” Glenn said, the words sounding like they’d been extracted under duress. “He’ll complete a co-parenting course and attend individual therapy. Reassessment contingent on therapist approval.”

Diana typed the terms. I signed first. My hand was steady.

Ethan signed second. His signature looked like it was trying to run away.

That afternoon, I picked Noah up from school. At home, I sat him at the kitchen table—the same table where he’d said her name and detonated my life. The same chair. The same light through the window. Everything the same except the ground beneath it.

“I need to talk to you about something important,” I said gently.

His eyes widened. “Am I in trouble?”

“Never. But things are going to be different for a while. Mommy and Daddy are going to live in different houses. Sometimes grown-ups can’t live together anymore. But we both love you. That never changes.”

Noah’s face crumpled slowly, like a drawing being erased. “Is it because of Aunt Phoebe?”

“It’s because of a lot of things. But you didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is your fault.”

Tears slipped down his cheeks. “Can I still go to Aunt Phoebe’s house?”

“No, baby. That’s not part of our life anymore.”

His sob turned sharp. “But I like the dog!”

“I know,” I whispered, pulling him into my arms. “It’s okay to be sad about that. Sometimes we say goodbye to people even if we like parts of them.”

Noah cried quietly against my shoulder, and I held him like I could absorb the hurt for both of us. His small body shook with the effort of processing something no six-year-old should have to process, and I hated Ethan in that moment with a clarity that felt like a physical force—not for cheating, not for lying, but for putting this weight on a child who still believed in Biscuit and dinosaur movies and the basic goodness of the people who were supposed to protect him.

The first supervised visit happened at a family services center with bright murals on the walls and toys that smelled like disinfectant. Noah clung to my hand in the lobby.

“Is Dad in trouble?”

“No. Dad and I just have rules right now. Like when you have rules at school.”

When Noah saw Ethan in the playroom, his face lit up. “Daddy!” He launched into Ethan’s arms.

Ethan held him too tightly, eyes squeezed shut.

I stood behind the glass panel and watched, my chest aching in a way that felt unfair. Because Noah loved him. Because love doesn’t come with conditions at six, and it shouldn’t have to. Because Noah didn’t understand why love didn’t stop someone from lying, and I couldn’t explain it in a way that wouldn’t break something inside him that I was trying very hard to protect.

Lena squeezed my shoulder beside me. “Don’t confuse Noah’s love with Ethan’s innocence.”

After court, the judge upheld the supervised arrangement. Ethan caught me in the hallway.

“Please. Can we just talk? I miss Noah. I miss us.”

I stared at him—really stared, like I was seeing him for the first time.

“You don’t miss us,” I said quietly. “You miss the version of your life where you got everything.”

“I’m trying,” he whispered.

“Try with your therapist. Try by not using our child to make yourself feel good.”

His eyes filled. “I never meant to hurt him.”

“But you did,” I said. “And intent doesn’t erase impact.”

I walked away before he could answer. Because if I stayed, I might fall back into the old trap: believing his pain was mine to fix.

Three weeks later, the divorce papers were finalized.

It wasn’t dramatic. No shouting, no tears, no courtroom gasps. Just a conference room with bad lighting and two people who used to share a bed signing documents that said they never would again.

Ethan’s hand shook so badly his pen skipped. He had to start over twice. He didn’t look at me when he slid the papers across the table. He looked like a man who had finally run out of stories to tell—not just to me, but to himself.

Patricia walked me out. “You did this well,” she said in the elevator.

“I didn’t do anything,” I whispered.

“You protected your son. You documented. You stayed steady when he tried to make you the villain. That’s not nothing. That’s everything.”

I walked out into the parking lot under a sun that felt too bright, air smelling like rain and something clean. My chest didn’t explode with grief like I’d expected. Instead, I felt light. Not happy—not yet, maybe not for a while. But free. Free in the way that comes when you stop carrying someone else’s lies and realize the weight wasn’t yours to begin with.

That night, I tucked Noah into bed. He stared up at me with sleepy seriousness.

“Is Daddy sad?” he asked.

I swallowed. “Daddy made choices that hurt people,” I said carefully. “And yes, that can make him sad. But it’s not your job to fix that. Your job is to be a kid.”

“Okay,” he whispered, hugging his stuffed dinosaur—the one he’d had since he was two, the one that had survived more moves and more tears than any toy should have to. Within minutes, he was asleep.

I sat on the edge of his bed and watched him breathe—the steady rise and fall grounding me the way it always had, even in the worst weeks, even in the darkest hours. His breathing was the metronome that kept me moving forward when everything else felt like wreckage.

For months, I’d lived in a house full of secrets without knowing it. A husband who kept a second life in a downtown apartment. A son who’d been taught that lying was love. A mother-in-law who thought betrayal was a weather event. A woman named Phoebe who kept snacks for my child and planned a future with my husband while I stood at a kitchen counter wondering if I’d switched the laundry.

Now the truth was out. Documented. Signed. Binding.

I didn’t have to wonder where Ethan was at night anymore. I didn’t have to taste unfamiliar perfume on his collar and pretend it was my imagination. I didn’t have to compete with a woman I’d never met for a place in my own life. I didn’t have to smile through dinners and pretend the cracks weren’t spreading.

I stood, turned off Noah’s light, and left his door cracked the way he liked it—just enough so the hallway light made a thin golden line across his floor, like a path leading somewhere safe.

In the hallway, the quiet didn’t feel like emptiness. It didn’t feel like the silence of a marriage where one person was always somewhere else. It didn’t feel like the held breath before the next lie.

It felt like peace.

And for the first time since Noah said “Aunt Phoebe”—swinging his legs under the table, cereal-mouthed and trusting, not knowing he was handing me the thread that would unravel everything—I believed something I hadn’t been able to say out loud:

We were going to be okay.

THE END.

Adrian Hawthorne

Adrian Hawthorne is a celebrated author and dedicated archivist who finds inspiration in the hidden stories of the past. Educated at Oxford, he now works at the National Archives, where preserving history fuels his evocative writing. Balancing archival precision with creative storytelling, Adrian founded the Hawthorne Institute of Literary Arts to mentor emerging writers and honor the timeless art of narrative.