Chương 9
Not at Alexander’s apartment.
Anna refused.
They met at Maya’s office with both attorneys present and a document examiner on video call because Maya had become suspicious of every piece of paper connected to a dead billionaire.
The envelope was yellowed slightly at one edge.
Alexander had kept it in a locked drawer.
His name was written across the front in Nathan’s heavy handwriting.
Alexander held it for almost a minute.
Anna finally said, “Are you going to open it?”
“I’m considering whether seven more years would improve it.”
Maya looked up from her notes.
“Unlikely.”
Anna almost smiled.
Alexander broke the seal.
The letter was three pages.
He read silently.
Halfway down the first page, his face changed.
He stopped.
Anna’s heart began beating too hard.
“What?”
He handed her the pages.
“Read it.”
Nathan’s writing was concise.
No apology at the beginning.
No sentimental confession.
He told Alexander that there was a matter regarding Margaret Mercer that he had “handled poorly and postponed shamefully.”
Anna had to stop after that sentence.
She started again.
Nathan described Margaret as an employee with whom he had an affair during a separation from Alexander’s mother. When Margaret became pregnant, he had demanded a paternity test. After it confirmed Anna was his daughter, he arranged support and a confidentiality agreement because he believed public disclosure would damage a financing deal and his pending reconciliation with his wife.
He wrote about it as if explaining a business error.
Then the tone changed.
Margaret had refused continued contact with him after he missed Anna’s fourth birthday.
Nathan became angry.
He suspended the payments.
He expected Margaret to come back and ask.
She did.
He ignored her letters.
Anna reached the second page and had to put it down.
Maya pushed a glass of water toward her.
Anna did not drink.
Alexander stared at the wall.
“Keep going,” she said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
She picked up the letter.
Nathan wrote that he had later instructed an attorney to establish a trust for Anna.
The attorney prepared documents.
Nathan never signed them.
He gave no grand reason.
He wrote, “I kept waiting for a time when acknowledging her would cost less.”
Anna closed her eyes.
There it was.
Twenty-seven years reduced to one sentence.
Not fate.
Not conspiracy.
Cowardice.
Money.
Reputation.
Convenience.
She finished.
Nathan asked Alexander to find Margaret and Anna after his death if he failed to do so while alive. He enclosed an address.
The address was nine years out of date even when he mailed it.
At the bottom he wrote:
Do not make the mistake of believing money can repair an absence. It cannot. But do not use that as an excuse to leave the harm unpaid.
There was no “I love you.”
No “your sister.”
No final wisdom.
Nathan signed his name.
Anna placed the letter on the table.
Nobody spoke.
Finally Maya asked, “Alexander, why didn’t your father’s assistant alert you to the subject of the letter?”
“He marked personal correspondence as sealed.”
“And nobody knew?”
“Apparently not.”
Elena said, “We’re still reviewing records.”
Anna looked at Alexander.
“If you had opened it?”
He stared at the pages.
“I would have known seven years ago.”
“What would you have done?”
His face tightened.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s honest.”
“It’s not enough.”
“No.”
He nodded.
Anna stood and went to the restroom.
She locked herself in a stall and sat fully clothed on the closed lid.
She did not cry.
She read Nathan’s sentence on her phone because Maya had scanned the letter.
I kept waiting for a time when acknowledging her would cost less.
Her mother had died believing Nathan never corrected what he had done.
Maybe Margaret had stopped waiting years earlier.
Anna wished she could ask.
Instead she remembered a Tuesday night when she was sixteen and found her mother at the kitchen table balancing bills.
Margaret had a pencil tucked into her hair.
Anna had asked why they never ordered pizza like Priya’s family.
Margaret had said, “Because I can make spaghetti for six dollars.”
Anna had rolled her eyes.
“Your childhood deprivation is severe.”
“You’re ruining me.”
“I’m trying.”
They had eaten spaghetti.
Margaret burned the garlic bread.
Anna had forgotten that part until now.
She pressed a fist against her mouth.
The world had not been tragic every day.
That somehow made Nathan’s absence worse.
He had not only missed suffering.
He had missed burnt garlic bread.
Parent-teacher nights.
Anna quitting clarinet after three months.
Margaret laughing so hard at a broken folding chair that she had to sit on the floor.
A thousand ordinary things Nathan had decided were not worth the cost.
When Anna returned, Alexander was standing by the window.
Maya and Elena had stepped into the hall.
He turned.
“I’m going to transfer half of what I inherited from him to you.”
Anna stopped.
“No.”
“It should have been yours.”
“No.”
“Anna—”
“Do not do that.”
“Why?”
“Because you want to feel better.”
His face hardened.
“That’s not why.”
“It’s at least partly why.”
“He denied you everything.”
“And you giving me half your money doesn’t make him my father.”
“No.”
“Then stop trying to solve it.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You have been solving since the ballroom.”
His voice rose.
“What would you prefer I do?”
“Sit in it.”
He stared at her.
“Sit in what?”
“The fact that there’s nothing clean to do.”
He looked furious.
Good.
Anna was furious too.
“You got his company,” she said. “His houses. His name. His mistakes. Congratulations. I got a lab report and a dead mother who spent half her life pretending she didn’t care.”
“That is not what I want for you.”
“What you want does not matter yet.”
Alexander turned away.
His hands went to his hips.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then he said, “That’s difficult for me.”
Anna almost laughed.
May you like
“Yes. I noticed.”
Three weeks after the ballroom assault, prosecutors filed charges against Victoria.
