Chương 14
“I know,” Hannah said.
Sloane’s face tightened. “That’s all?”
“I don’t know what else to do with it.”
“You could say you forgive me.”
“I don’t.”
Nathan looked away.
Sloane nodded as if struck.
Hannah forced herself to continue.
“I may someday. I am not going to say it because we drove here and stood beside a cross.”
Sloane wiped her cheek.
“Do you hate me?”
“Sometimes.”
Denise began to cry in the car.
Hannah looked at the road.
“I also missed you,” she said. “Sometimes at the same time.”
Sloane pressed her lips together.
Nathan walked closer.
“What did Owen say before the crash?” he asked.
Both sisters answered at once.
“Would you both just shut up?”
They looked at each other.
A surprised laugh passed between them and ended almost immediately.
Nathan touched the faint scar near his temple.
“Sloane told me he was funny.”
“He was annoying,” Hannah said.
“He was very funny,” Sloane said.
“He cheated at cards.”
“He was fourteen.”
“He knew what he was doing.”
The wind moved the plastic flowers against the cross with a dry clicking sound.
Denise left the car and joined them. She carried a small paper bag.
“I brought these,” she said.
Inside were three candy bars Owen had liked.
“They will melt,” Hannah said.
“I didn’t know what people leave.”
“Owen would have eaten them melted.”
Sloane placed one beneath the cross.
Hannah looked at the others.
“Take them home,” she said. “The raccoons didn’t know him.”
Denise laughed through tears.
They stood beside the road until the light began to fade.
Nothing resolved there.
No one felt healed.
But when Hannah returned to her car, Sloane touched her elbow before stepping away.
Hannah did not flinch.
Alan agreed to meet only after his business attorney withdrew from representing him personally.
The meeting took place at Whitaker Hill Events on a Tuesday morning before the office opened. Hannah had not entered the building since she was nineteen. The lobby still displayed photographs of weddings beneath trees, though the frames had been replaced.
Alan sat at the conference table in a gray suit. Without a boutonniere or an audience, he looked less imposing.
His new attorney sat beside him.
Denise, Sloane, Hannah, and their separate lawyers occupied the opposite side. Nathan waited outside by choice.
Alan did not greet his daughters.
His attorney began by proposing a mutual nondisparagement agreement. Alan would withdraw his allegations of instability if Hannah and Sloane agreed not to release the voicemail or accuse him of coercion.
Hannah listened until the proposal ended.
“No,” she said.
Alan looked at her. “You haven’t changed.”
“I have. That is why I said no without shouting.”
His attorney asked whether she had a counterproposal.
Hannah’s lawyer slid a document across the table.
It required Alan to issue a correction stating that Hannah had been invited to the wedding, that his public description of her mental stability lacked medical basis, and that the original account of Owen’s accident was under official review following supplemental statements.
It did not require him to confess.
Alan read it.
“This makes me look guilty.”
“You are guilty,” Sloane said.
His head snapped toward her.
“Of what? Trying to keep two daughters out of prison?”
“Of deciding one daughter was disposable.”
“I protected you.”
“You taught me that the truth was something weaker people paid for.”
Alan pushed back from the table.
“You think Nathan would have married you if this had been public?”
“No,” Sloane said. “That’s why I hid it.”
The answer halted him.
She continued. “You did not make me lie to Nathan. I did that myself. I learned it from you, but I did it.”
Denise stared at her daughter.
Alan looked toward Hannah.
“And you? Are you enjoying this?”
“Parts of it.”
Her attorney glanced at her.
Hannah continued. “I enjoy watching you fail to control the room. I enjoy that Sloane no longer waits for your permission. I do not enjoy what it cost.”
Alan’s expression hardened.
“You were always cruel.”
“So were you.”
“I gave you everything.”
“You paid tuition until I left. You taught me to drive. You made pancakes on Sundays and burned the first one every time. You sat outside my bedroom when I had pneumonia because Mom was afraid of getting sick.”
Alan looked away.
Hannah’s throat tightened.
“That is why this was difficult,” she said. “You were not a monster every day.”
Denise closed her eyes.
Alan’s attorney shifted uncomfortably.
Hannah continued. “You loved us. Then Owen died, and you decided love gave you authority over reality.”
“I did what a father had to do.”
“No. You did what you could live with.”
“And what are you doing now?”
“What I can live with.”
Alan struck the document with the back of his fingers.
“You will ruin the company. Forty employees depend on me.”
“That is why the correction does not discuss the details of the accident,” Hannah said. “It tells the truth about the wedding and acknowledges the review.”
“You want me humiliated.”
“I want you unable to call me unstable whenever I stop obeying.”
Alan looked at Denise.
“You are leaving me over this?”
Denise’s hands tightened in her lap.
“I am leaving the house.”
“That was not my question.”
“I don’t know the answer yet.”
He laughed once.
“After thirty-four years.”
“After thirty-four years,” Denise said, “I would like to hear my own thoughts before you explain them.”
Alan stared at her.
Something in him seemed to fold inward. Not remorse. Not yet. Perhaps only the realization that the structures around him had been held up by people, and people could move.
He turned to Sloane.
“I paid for that wedding.”
“Yes.”
“I built your career.”
“You introduced me to people.”
“I gave you a life.”
“You gave me a room inside yours.”
His face reddened.
“And Nathan? Has he forgiven you?”
“No.”
May you like
“Then all this honesty bought you nothing.”
Sloane’s eyes filled, but she did not look away.
