Nobody answered.
I watched them from the stairs. Naomi had her arm around Aurelia. Rosalind leaned forward, elbows on her knees. Celeste sat on the arm of the couch.
For a moment, they looked like they used to. Before the money. Before the careers. Before the distance.
Maybe Harrison was right, I thought. Maybe there’s still hope.
But then I saw the stack of envelopes on the coffee table.
Nineteen left.
The first six letters had been gentle reminders of who they used to be. But I knew what was coming next.
The hard part.
The truths they didn’t want to hear.
I walked back to my bedroom.
“One more week of peace,” I whispered. “Then it gets ugly.”
The tears didn’t last.
By letter six, the warmth was gone. Now came the shame. Harrison’s next letters weren’t gentle. They were surgical. Each one cut deep.
Letter six for Naomi.
Two years ago, she’d let go of two hundred employees. Not in person—over email. A single message sent at five p.m. on a Friday.
“You didn’t even look them in the eye,” Warren read.
Naomi’s face went pale.
“The company was struggling,” Rosalind said. “Or just not making enough money.”
Letter seven for Rosalind.
She owed eight hundred thousand dollars. Gambling debts. Chicago. Atlantic City. Las Vegas. She’d borrowed from dangerous people who’d started calling, threatening.
“You were planning to use your inheritance to run,” Warren read—“to make it all disappear.”
Rosalind didn’t deny it.
Letter eight for Celeste.
Three years ago, a patient came in with a critical heart issue, but Celeste had tickets to a gala. She handed the case to a resident. The patient nearly didn’t make it.
“You chose a party over a life,” Warren read.
Celeste stood. “The patient survived.”
“Barely,” I said quietly.
She sat back down.
Letter nine for Violet.
An elderly woman hired Violet to redesign her home. Paid fifty thousand upfront. Violet took the money, never finished the project, and disappeared.
“You took from someone who couldn’t fight back,” Warren read.
Violet’s face flushed.
“She was rude,” Violet muttered.
“She was eighty-three,” Naomi said sharply.
They started turning on each other then—blaming, deflecting.
“At least I didn’t abandon a patient,” Violet snapped.
“At least I didn’t steal,” Celeste shot back.
“At least I didn’t destroy two hundred families,” Rosalind said.
I stood.
“Enough.”
They stopped and looked at me.
“Your father didn’t write these letters to make you fight,” I said. “He wrote them to make you see. So sit down and listen.”
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