Two investors pulled out.
The company’s largest customer terminated its contract after learning of the allegations.
Lauren resigned.
She later entered a cooperation agreement and turned over company records.
Daniel blamed everyone.
Lauren.
Me.
The Army.
My grandfather.
His lawyers.
“People are trying to destroy me,” he told mutual friends.
But nobody had forced him to open my mail.
Nobody had forced him to falsify my involvement.
Nobody had forced him to create fake emails.
Nobody had forced him to put my name in a federal procurement proposal.
Nobody had forced him to bring his girlfriend into my hospital room while our daughter slept six feet away.
That had all been Daniel.
Part Nine — Grandpa Arthur’s Real Secret
A month after Clara was born, Rachel invited me to her office.
“There is one final trust document.”
My stomach tightened.
After everything that had happened, I had developed an allergy to mysterious envelopes.
“What now?”
Rachel smiled.
“Nothing terrible.”
She handed me a handwritten note from Grandpa.
It was dated two years before his death.
Rebecca,
If you’re reading this, the trust has transferred.
I know twenty million dollars sounds like freedom. It isn’t. Money is only leverage. Freedom is knowing what you will and will not trade for it.
I smiled through tears.
Then continued.
One day, somebody may tell you that love requires you to rescue them from consequences they created themselves.
It doesn’t.
That sentence broke me.
Not because Grandpa knew about Daniel.
He didn’t.
The letter had been written before Daniel’s company began collapsing.
Grandpa was not predicting my marriage.
He was simply teaching me one last lesson.
Help people who fall.
Be careful with people who repeatedly jump and demand that you become the ground.
I laughed through my tears.
That sounded exactly like him.
At the bottom he had written:
Buy something foolish for the baby. I spent eighty-six years being practical. One of us should have some fun.
So I did.
I bought Clara an absurdly expensive wooden rocking horse she would not be able to use for years.
Gloria called it ridiculous.
Rachel approved.
