You only dismantled what others built. Declan's fist came down on the counter shelf. The guard stationed behind him moved his hand toward his baton. Declan caught himself and dropped his voice. So this is what it was.
You drove out here to deliver a lecture, to stand on the other side of this glass and gloat. He pushed out a short, bitter laugh. Fine. Go enjoy your millions, Dad. You're going to die in that house with nobody around you.
Ingrid wants nothing to do with you. I want nothing to do with you. You'll sit in that empty place and decay and not one living person will give it a thought. I looked at his face. I wanted to raise my voice at him.
I wanted to remind him that the furniture he'd been sitting on was purchased with $3 million stripped from the sale of my home. Every surface in that apartment, every fixture, every comfort bought with four decades of my earnings. I kept it all down. I had come to leave him something. I reached into my shirt pocket and drew out a small photograph.
The edges had gone soft and curved with age. It was taken 35 years ago at a lakehouse in Tennessee. In it, I was younger, my face fuller, a beard on my jaw, and a fishing rod in my hand. Marion stood beside me, laughing, her hair moving loose in the wind off the water. Between us on the dock, sat a 5-year-old boy holding up a small fish with a grin that occupied his entire face.
He looked safe. He looked loved. I pressed the photograph flat against the glass between us. Declan looked at it. For just a moment, the anger receded.
He studied the small boy he used to be. He studied his mother's expression. "That was the family you had," I said.
"Well, that was the love you traded for a first-class seat and a watch." Declan turned his face to the side. He couldn't sustain looking at it. "Take it away," he said, barely above a whisper.
"I'm leaving it with the guard," I told him. Whether you put it on your wall or tear it into pieces, that decision belongs to you. It's no longer my concern. I got to my feet. My knees held without complaint.
My back was straight. Declan looked up and the panic had returned to his face. Wait, where are you going? I'm going to Eugene Declan. Going to be near your sister.