Caroline asked whether he regretted helping.
He thought about his marriage, the hotel room, the weeks spent reading files, and the people who had finally begun to speak.
He said he regretted what happened at home but not the search for the truth.
Caroline nodded and went inside.
Andrew Hale asked Daniel to meet him at a public garden on a Wednesday morning.
Daniel almost refused.
He had spoken with enough members of the Hale family to last several lifetimes, and the thought of another polished apology made him tired.
Andrew’s letter, however, contained no request for forgiveness or secrecy.
He said his father had used Daniel’s name during a family argument and that Andrew wanted to correct one false claim before it spread.
Mara advised Daniel to attend only if he wished and to avoid discussing disputed records without counsel.
Daniel chose to go because the accusation involved his own conduct.
Andrew looked like Richard around the eyes, a resemblance he seemed painfully aware of.
He wore a faded university sweatshirt and carried a reusable bottle.
He said Richard had told relatives that Daniel was trying to extract money from the foundation in exchange for remaining quiet about Jessica.
Andrew had asked for proof, and Richard produced none.
Andrew wanted Daniel to know he had challenged the story rather than repeated it.
“You don’t owe me a meeting,” Andrew said.
“I just know what happens when nobody contradicts him.”
Daniel looked toward a gardener kneeling beside a row of late roses.
He had imagined Richard’s son as an inheritor of influence, another man who would spend his life defending a family name.
Instead Andrew seemed frightened of becoming someone who excused an obvious lie because resisting it might cost him a relationship.
“Did you know about Saint Alden?”
Daniel asked.
“I knew children died.
I knew Dad chaired a committee.
He told me the investigation had established there was nothing he could have done differently.”
“And now?”
Andrew rubbed his forehead.
“Now I know the records say people warned the committee about the door.
I don’t know whether he read those warnings.
I do know he keeps treating every question like an insult.”
Daniel said Andrew was entitled to love his father without defending every decision.
The words surprised him because they echoed his own struggle with Jessica.
Affection and judgment were not opposites.
Andrew could remember the father who taught him to ride a bicycle while confronting the executive who had staged false dinners.
