He Sacrificed My Father for His First Love novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Hope Night Invitation

On Wednesday morning I went to the Rinaldi Foundation in my father's good flannel and carried a folder of paper.

Bea had printed it at the bar at two in the morning.

It was the public donor page of Mom's Hope Fund, every name above five thousand dollars, with a pen mark beside the ones I knew.

Eleven of them sat on the Foundation's own board.

Rory had texted once, at seven.

Facts: I'm at the station. I'm not gone.

I had read it a dozen times on the train and had not answered.

I could still feel his hands on my hips from two nights ago.

I could still hear what I'd said in the truck.

The Foundation had the whole twelfth floor of a glass building on Park Avenue.

The reception desk was white marble, and behind it a wall of framed photographs showed Domenico shaking hands with children in hospital gowns.

Two of the drawings on the wall were mine.

"I'm here to see the president's office," I said.

"Do you have an appointment?" said the young man at the desk.

"I'm Mrs. Rinaldi."

His face did several things at once.

"Of course," he said. "I'll let Mr. Rinaldi's assistant know."

I didn't wait.

I walked through the glass doors into the open floor where forty people sat at forty desks, and I stopped in the middle of it.

Conversations slowed.

A woman at the nearest desk stood up.

"Mrs. Rinaldi, he's in a meeting..."

"That's fine," I said. "I'm not here for him."

I set the folder on the desk and opened it.

"My name is Abby Bannerman," I said, loudly enough for the whole floor. "My father died ten days ago. This Foundation moved his place in a cancer trial to a woman named in this fund."

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