Chapter 15 - The Daughter He Failed
The fire crew found a smoldering wastebasket near the records room. Investigators would later determine whether it had been set deliberately. For now, Gideon was in the hospital with a heart rhythm problem, and Nora was sitting beside his bed because he had asked for her.
“Is Ivy all right?” he whispered.
“Yes. She wants to know why you didn't come to dinner.”
“Tell her I had a terrible excuse.”
Nora almost laughed. “That's what she said you would say.”
Amina arrived carrying the results of a legally supervised DNA comparison. They showed the expected biological relationship between Gideon and Ivy with overwhelming statistical support.
Gideon held the paper but didn't smile.
“It's real,” Nora said.
“I knew after I saw the baby in Lydia's video.” His voice cracked. “The test is for everybody else.”
Nora placed Lydia's recovered letter on the blanket. He read slowly.
Lydia had written that she loved him, even when his refusal to listen made her feel invisible. She had begged him not to confuse keeping the peace with doing the right thing. And she had warned him that scholarship students would keep paying the price if he didn't act.
“I'm not asking you to forgive me,” he said to Nora.
“Good. Because that's not my job.”
Later that afternoon, Celeste's attorney offered to arrange the return of substantial trust assets if Gideon agreed to retract his public accusations and stop cooperating on older matters. Amina rejected the proposal without telling Ivy about it.
At the hospital, Gideon took a call from a reporter and made one statement: “My daughter tried to expose wrongdoing in the foundation bearing my name. I dismissed her warnings. I'm going to help establish the facts, including my own failures.”
That evening Ivy visited. She climbed carefully into the chair beside his bed.
“Are you my grandpa now?” she asked.
“If you'll let me be.”
Her face tightened. “Do you want me because I'm hers, or because I'm me?”
May you like
Gideon opened his mouth.
For the first time in his life, he knew that the wrong answer could cost more than money.
