Seeing Ethan’s number, I apologized. “Mandy,” he said, his voice tight with emotion. “Dad just called me.” “He wants to meet tomorrow.” “Just him and me.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked, setting down my wine glass. I said I’d think about it.
Ethan paused. “I think I should go. Maybe he’s finally ready to explain himself. Or maybe he’s trying to divide us.
I countered. That’s always been their strategy. Play us against each other.
I know, but Ethan sighed. He’s still our father, Mandy, biological or not. Don’t you want to understand why he did all this?
The question hit me harder than I expected. Did I want to understand? Part of me wanted only justice, consequences, closure, but another part, the daughter who had once adored her father despite his flaws, desperately wanted explanations that might make sense of the betrayal. “If you go,” I said finally, I’m coming with you.
The meeting never happened. The next morning, we received word that my father had boarded a private jet bound for a country with no extradition treaty with the United States. My mother claimed ignorance of his plans when questioned by authorities, though few believed her.
The official investigation into Blake Holdings finances was now moving from civil to criminal territory with the FBI taking a direct interest in the case. In the midst of this chaos, a small miracle occurred. Amid a routine doctor’s appointment, I discovered I was 8 weeks pregnant.
David and I had been trying for nearly a year, and the timing seemed both terrible and perfect. New life emerging from the ashes of family destruction. When I told Grandpa Harold the news, his eyes filled with tears.
The first I’d seen since the whole ordeal began. “Life goes on,” he said simply, placing his weathered hand over mine. “That’s the beauty of it.” One year after the day, Grandpa Harold stood up in the library and changed everything. We gathered again at Lake View Manor, not for a reading or legal proceeding, but for a different kind of family meeting.
