Chapter 10
The next attack came through Emma.
My wife had been dead three years.
Aneurysm.
Sudden.
Merciless.
One moment she was laughing in the garden with Lily.
The next she was on the ground.
I had lived inside that moment ever since.
My father knew it.
So he used it.
A sealed medical report appeared in the press.
It suggested Emma had complained of headaches for weeks.
It hinted I had ignored her.
It implied negligence.
I read the headline alone in my study.
Then I vomited into the wastebasket.
Lily found me on the floor.
That was the worst part.
Her small hand touched my hair.
“Daddy?”
I wiped my mouth.
“I’m okay.”
She frowned.
“No, you’re not.”
She was right.
Daniel traced the leak to Dr. Warren Hale, my father’s private physician.
The report was real.
The conclusion was not.
Emma had mentioned headaches once during a routine visit.
Dr. Hale never told me.
Never ordered scans.
Never warned her.
And after she died, he wrote a memo suggesting I had been informed.
My father had kept it.
A blade for later.
When confronted, Dr. Hale folded quickly.
Men like him serve power until power looks weak.
He gave a sworn statement.
My father had ordered the memo altered.
The grief I carried for three years shifted.
Not lighter.
Different.
I had blamed myself for not seeing signs.
Now I learned my father had fed that blame on purpose.
That night, I sat in Emma’s garden until my hands went numb.
Lily came out in her coat.
Mrs. Vale followed, worried.
Lily climbed into my lap.
“Was Mommy sick?”
“For a little while.”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Did Grandpa lie?”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened.
“I don’t like him.”
“You do not have to.”
“Do you?”
I stared at the dark roses.
“He is my father.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
May you like
I held her closer.
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t think I do anymore.”
