He Sacrificed My Father for His First Love novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Tribeca

I still had my key to the Tribeca apartment.

I used it at nine that night, with Rory's mother's envelope in my coat pocket and Rory waiting downstairs in his truck.

I had told him to stay in it.

"Facts only," he had said. "If you're not down in thirty minutes, I'm coming up."

"Then I'll be down in twenty-nine."

The living room lights were on.

Domenico sat at the kitchen island with a glass of whiskey and his tie pulled loose.

He looked up, and for the first time in a week his face was glad.

"Abby," he said. "You came home."

I didn't answer.

I walked to the island and took the long white envelope out of my pocket.

I set it down in front of him.

He read the line on the front.

His face stayed exactly where it was, and the color drained out of it from the top down.

"Where did you get that?"

"A woman in Yonkers kept it in a drawer for three months. She never cashed it."

He reached for his tie and tugged it twice.

"Abby."

"August fourteenth."

"I can explain."

"Then explain."

He put the whiskey down very carefully, and he put both hands flat on the counter.

"Daphne told me her mother had stage four," he said. "In June. She was crying. She said it was in the lymph nodes and she had a few months. She said the only chance was the trial at Sloan Kettering and they'd closed enrollment."

"And you called the Foundation."

"I called a friend on the donor board. I told myself the hospital had room for two."

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