Chapter 19
“That’s not an answer.”
“No. It isn’t.”
I waited.
Raffaele looked suddenly older.
“I wanted the Lakefront project to succeed,” he said. “Your father was ready to walk away. I thought he was being weak.”
“And the families?”
“I convinced myself they would eventually benefit.”
“Did they?”
“Some.”
“And the ones who didn’t?”
His eyes dropped.
“Those are the questions that become harder with age.”
I pushed my father’s letter across the table.
Raffaele read the first page.
He stopped.
“You found the unit.”
“Mom wanted me to have it.”
“Your mother wanted many things.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“Because you were thirty when she died.”
“I was running the family.”
“Exactly.”
I stared at him.
He continued.
“You were ambitious. Angry. Certain you understood the world.”
“And you decided for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew what those files would do.”
“You knew what they would do to you.”
“That too.”
The honesty made me quiet.
Raffaele rubbed his thumb along the edge of the paper.
“I spent years telling myself I was protecting Antonio’s reputation. Then your mother’s. Then yours.”
He looked at me.
“Eventually, I stopped knowing whether I was protecting anyone or simply protecting the version of myself I preferred remembering.”
That sounded more like confession than excuse.
I sat opposite him.
“Evelyn wrote twice.”
“I know.”
“You stamped her letters.”
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
“No.”
Again, no fight.
It was almost disappointing.
I had come prepared to battle the man who had taught me how to win arguments.
Instead, he looked exhausted.
“Did Dad know about the foundation money?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mom?”
“Eventually.”
“Why send it there?”
Raffaele sighed.
“Tax structure at first. Then your father realized the money could be redirected toward restitution without publicly dismantling everything.”
“That’s why Mom paid Gabriel’s tuition.”
“Among other things.”
“Why secretly?”
“Because your mother understood something your father and I didn’t.”
“What?”
“People don’t always want charity from the people who harmed them.”
I thought of Evelyn.
I don’t want money. I want to know why.
“Did she ever meet Evelyn?”
“Several times.”
“Why didn’t Evelyn tell me?”
“You’d have to ask her.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“She told Clara more than she told me.”
Raffaele almost smiled.
“Clara has that effect on people.”
The sentence hurt.
Not because it was cruel.
Because it was true.
My wife inspired trust.
I inspired caution.
For years, I had thought those were the same thing.