He Sacrificed My Father for His First Love novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Table

I took the chain off the door but I did not open it any wider.

Rory stood behind me on the stairs, and I felt him there and did not look around.

"Abby," said Domenico. "I'm not here to ask for anything."

"Then you came a long way for nothing."

"I came to give you this."

He held out a large brown envelope, and the rain ran off the corner of it onto my father's welcome mat.

I took it and opened it on the threshold.

Inside were sheets of paper, signed at the bottom in his neat hand.

The divorce petition, with every line I'd asked my lawyer for, and nothing he'd have asked for himself.

A letter forgiving the hospice bill.

His resignation from the Foundation, dated tonight.

"I gave the committee a statement," he said. "They have it, and the attorney general's office will have it Monday. Everything I did, with dates. I'm not asking them to go easy."

"All right."

"My mother wired two million dollars to Memorial Sloan Kettering an hour ago," he said. "She said to tell you it isn't the check she tried to put in your hand. It has no agreement attached. It's for patients who can't get a place."

I thought about the black car at the curb, and the woman in pearls saying ask him who he was crying for.

"Not from you," I said.

"It's from her."

"Then I'll talk to her."

He nodded, and the water ran down his face.

"Abby." His voice broke on the name. "Can you forgive me? Not now. Someday."

I looked at him for a long time.

I looked at the man I had married at twenty-four, with the tall shoulders and the black hair plastered flat.

I had loved him once, and I could see exactly how much.

"No," I said.

"Abby..."

"My father had thirty-two days, and you spent them. I'm not going to forgive you someday, Domenico. I'm going to stop thinking about you, and that's all you get."

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