CHAPTER 10
Richard Harrington came to Nora’s house himself.
He should never have gotten past the gate.
Thomas later discovered Richard had arrived with an attorney who claimed he was delivering legal documents.
I stepped onto the porch before he could knock.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Richard looked older than he had two weeks earlier.
“My daughter is facing criminal charges.”
“Talk to the prosecutor.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“No.”
He held up one hand.
“Five minutes.”
“You have one.”
He glanced toward the windows.
“Is Lily inside?”
“Do not say her name.”
His jaw tightened.
“You’ve always been dramatic when cornered.”
“And you’ve always confused money with authority.”
“Interesting coming from you.”
Fair.
Once, maybe.
Not anymore.
Richard reached into his coat and handed me a folder.
I didn’t take it.
“What is that?”
“A solution.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“I know who brought it.”
His expression hardened.
“Harrington Capital will maintain its credit facility.”
I laughed once.
“You’re bribing me?”
“No.”
“You’re offering financing in exchange for what?”
“An end to public hostility.”
“Meaning?”
“You issue a statement saying the family matter has been exaggerated.”
“No.”
“You stop cooperating beyond what you are legally required to provide.”
“No.”
“You encourage prosecutors to consider diversion instead of felony charges.”
“No.”
Richard’s face reddened.
“Do you understand what happens if our financing disappears?”
“Yes.”
“Eight thousand employees.”
“I know.”
“Retirement accounts.”
“I know.”
“Families.”
“I know.”
“Then stop acting like this affects only you.”
My anger rose.
“I’m not the one using thousands of employees as leverage to protect someone who terrorized a four-year-old.”
“Allegedly.”
“Get off the property.”
“She is my daughter.”
“And Lily is mine.”
His expression changed.
“You think that makes you morally superior?”
“No.”
“I know exactly what kind of father I’ve been.”
I stepped closer.
“Do you?”
For the first time, Richard had no immediate answer.
I continued.
“You paid Mark.”
His eyes changed.
Only slightly.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Investigators do.”
“That man is a liar.”
“He has bank records.”
“I employ consultants.”
“You employed my assistant.”
Richard looked toward the driveway.
I knew then.
He was afraid.
Not for Claire.
For himself.
“You should leave.”
“This company will collapse around you.”
“Then I’ll rebuild.”
“You’re willing to lose everything?”
I looked through the window.
Lily was sitting at Nora’s table making something out of glitter.
Everything.
I finally understood how badly I had misused that word.
“No,” I said.
“I’m finally making sure I don’t.”
Richard left the folder on the porch.
I gave it unopened to investigators.
Within forty-eight hours, Harrington Capital froze its financing commitments.
The board called an emergency meeting.
I attended by video from Nora’s kitchen.
Daniel sat at the head of the conference table.
Directors argued for two hours.
Some supported me.
Some didn’t.
One finally said what everyone else was thinking.
“Ethan, your personal crisis has become a corporate crisis.”
I stared at the screen.
“My daughter being abused is not a public-relations inconvenience.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“It’s what you said.”
Another director intervened.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility.”
“So do I.”
“To shareholders.”
“I have one that comes before that.”
Silence.
They proposed a temporary removal of my voting authority while negotiations with lenders continued.
Two years earlier, I would have fought until sunrise.
That day, I voted yes.
Daniel stared at me through the screen.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
The motion passed.
I lost operational control of the company I founded at twenty-eight.
When the meeting ended, I closed the laptop.
I expected devastation.
Instead, someone tugged my sleeve.
Lily.
She held a piece of paper behind her back.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“I made you something.”
For one irrational second, I was afraid.
Afraid of what she might think drawings meant now.
She held it out.
It was a picture of two people inside a crooked green house.
Me.
Her.
Airport sat between us looking like a mutant dog.
There were blue marks on the floor.
“What are those?”
“Mess.”
“Mess?”
She nodded proudly.
“We live messy.”
I swallowed.
At the top she had written, with Nora’s help:
DADDY STAYS.
I stared at it too long.
Lily became nervous.
“You like it?”
I knelt.
“I love it.”
“You can put it in your office.”
“I don’t have an office right now.”
She frowned.
Then she pointed toward Nora’s refrigerator.
“Put it there.”
So I did.
May you like
I pinned the drawing between a grocery list and a coupon for laundry detergent.
For the first time in my life, nothing I had ever hung on an office wall felt more important.
