Chapter 26: Foundation Paper

Lydia read the letter twice, then folded it in four and held it in her fist.

"Terminated," she said. "I'm not even sacked. I've been terminated."

"You were never his to terminate."

"The flat is in the Foundation's name. I have until the end of the month."

"You're coming to my father's house."

"Clara, he's put it in writing. Guardianship of the unborn child."

Her hand went to her stomach and stayed there.

"Mom said that if I ever got a letter on that paper, Tom would read the statement at her funeral."

"She did."

Lydia looked up.

"She's still alive. I don't want her to be the reason a whole church hears this."

"Then we don't wait for the church."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm taking the letter back to him."

She started to argue, and I took the letter out of her fist and put it in my pocket.

"The doctor says you can leave this afternoon, if someone watches you on bed rest," I said.

"Who?"

"My father's front room has a couch and a window, and my mother will be across the hall."

Her face did something I had no word for.

"She'd like that," she said.

"She'd like it more than anything."

Miles was waiting in the car park with the engine running and my father in the passenger seat.

He read the letter standing at the open door.

His jaw set.

"He said nine," he said. "That's twenty minutes."

"I'm not waiting for the meeting. I want his donors there."

The Ashworth Foundation kept its offices in a white house on the green, with a brass plate on the gate.

It was Saturday, and a donor coffee was under way in the front room.

Forty people stood about with cups, in good coats, under a portrait of Miles's grandfather.

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