Eli stared at him with suspicion.
Good, Victor thought.
Suspicion was honest.
“I was unkind to you,” Victor said.
Eli said nothing.
“I should not have spoken to you that way.”
Still nothing.
Victor swallowed.
“I am sorry.”
The words were strange in his mouth, like a language he had once known and forgotten.
Eli looked toward the table.
“They laughed at me.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“Yes,” he said. “They did.”
“Why?”
Because they are cowards, Victor thought.
Because I taught them by example.
Because money can make people mistake comfort for worth.
But he did not say that to a child.
Instead, he said, “Because they were wrong.”
Eli looked back at him.
“Will you help my mom?”
There it was.
Not forgiveness.
Not affection.
Not reunion.
Only the one question that mattered.
Victor stood.
“Yes.”
Bennett rose again. “Uncle, the mayor is still here. The foundation announcement—”
“My daughter is in a hospital.”
Bennett’s eyes flickered.
“After all this time, are you certain you want to rush into something emotional?”
Victor looked at him for a long, dangerous second.
“Emotional,” he repeated.
The word hung in the air like an insult.
Then Victor removed his tuxedo jacket and placed it around Eli’s shoulders. It swallowed the boy, hanging nearly to his knees.
Eli clutched it with one hand.
Victor turned to the staff.
“Shoes. A car. Now.”
Servants moved at once.
The guests remained frozen.
Victor faced the table.
“Dinner is over.”
No one argued.
Within three minutes, Eli was wearing oversized house slippers and sitting in the back of Victor’s black car, the music box held tightly in his lap.
Victor sat across from him.
The city moved past the tinted windows in streaks of gold and red.
For a while, neither spoke.
Victor wanted to ask everything.
Did Mara still laugh through her nose when she was embarrassed?
Did she still tuck her hair behind her ear when she lied?
Had Jonah been good to her?
Was Jonah alive?
Had Eli gone hungry?
Had Mara hated him every day, or only on birthdays?
But the questions felt like theft.
So he asked the only simple one.
“Are you hungry?”
Eli looked ashamed.
“A little.”
Victor reached for the intercom. “We’ll stop.”
“No.” Eli leaned forward quickly. “Please. Mom first.”
Victor’s hand paused.
A ten-year-old should not know how to prioritize emergencies.
A ten-year-old should not have eyes that old.
“You’re right,” Victor said.
Eli stared at him.
“What?”
“I said you’re right.”
The boy looked down, as if adults admitting things made him uncomfortable.
After a moment, Eli asked, “Did you hate her?”
Victor’s chest tightened.
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you come?”
Because pride is easier than apology.
Because I wanted obedience more than happiness.
Because I confused control with love.
Because after your grandmother died, I became a house with no lights on.
Victor looked out at the city.
“Because I was a fool.”
Eli considered this.
“My mom said you were powerful.”
“She was too generous.”
“She said you were proud.”
“That is more accurate.”
“She said you loved Grandma.”
Victor’s throat closed.
“I did.”
“Did Grandma love Mom?”
“More than anything.”
“Did she love you?”
Victor’s reflection stared back from the window, older than he felt, smaller than he had believed.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Though I gave her many reasons not to.”
Eli opened the music box just enough for one thin note to escape, then shut it again.
“Mom said Grandma would have liked me.”
Victor looked at him then.
“She would have adored you.”
The boy’s face softened for the first time.
Only slightly.
But Victor saw it.
And it nearly undid him.
Mercy General was everything Harrow House was not.
Too bright. Too crowded. Too loud. The emergency entrance smelled of disinfectant, vending machine coffee, and fear. A man slept in a chair with his work boots still on. A woman argued with an insurance representative near the elevator. Nurses moved with the exhausted speed of people holding too many lives together with too little help.
Eli jumped from the car before the driver could fully open the door.
Victor followed.
At the desk, a nurse looked up.
“Eli Vale! Where have you been?”
Then she saw Victor.
Her expression changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
And then contempt.
Victor almost welcomed it.
At least someone had been angry for Mara.
“I need to see Mara Vale,” he said.
The nurse folded her arms. Her badge read: Nadine Brooks.
“Family only.”
“I am her father.”
The nurse’s eyes sharpened.
“Oh,” she said. “Now?”
Victor accepted the blow.
“Yes.”
Eli grabbed the nurse’s sleeve. “Please, Miss Nadine. He came.”
Nadine looked down at the boy, and everything about her softened.