Chapter 14 - The Diner Meeting
Simone stared at the visitor log. “I should have told you.”
The words cut through the kitchen as surely as an accusation.
“You met Dad the day before he died?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He called me. He was frightened. He said he had copies of records showing the foundation charged donors for services families never received.”
“And you let me believe he died without saying goodbye?”
Her eyes filled. “I didn't know how much he had told you. He asked me not to involve you until he spoke to Evelyn.”
I thought of my father's worn hands, the way he checked the locks at night after his apartment was broken into the first time. Had I mistaken fear for age?
“What happened at the diner?” I asked.
“He gave me an envelope. Not the financial records. A list of families who needed urgent help. He said if something happened, I should make sure they weren't forgotten.”
“Where is it?”
“At the clinic, in a locked file cabinet.”
Darius drove with us. We didn't enter until Simone had notified the clinic director, who met us at the front door. Inside the cabinet was a manila envelope marked PRIVATE. It held names and housing needs, plus a separate note in my father's handwriting: These people are not numbers. Do something real.
At the bottom was a receipt for an independent medical consultation he'd scheduled for the morning of his death. He had complained of chest pressure after the confrontation. The consultation never happened.
I sat down hard. A heart attack was still possible. The confrontation might have frightened him. But now I knew he had tried to get help, and I had been denied the chance to understand his last days.
Simone sat beside me. “I'm sorry.”
“I don't know what to do with that yet.”
“I understand.”
May you like
The clinic director approached holding a letter delivered by courier. Celia had suspended the foundation's funding, effective immediately.
Without that money, the clinic would close its pediatric services at the end of the week.
