I thought of Richard’s letter.
Judge Mercer recognizing my name.
Naomi finding Silver Pines.
The red notebook.
The bruises.
My own son sitting across a courtroom trying to take away my independence.
“No,” I said.
“I consider myself prepared.”
Then the reporter asked the question everyone seemed obsessed with.
“Did your professional experience save you?”
I looked directly at her.
“It helped.”
“But?”
“But people shouldn’t need forty years of forensic accounting experience to be believed when they say something is wrong.”
That became the mission of the fund.
Believe first.
Investigate carefully.
Follow the documents.
And never confuse age with incompetence.
Two years after the hearing, I received another letter from Daniel.
This time he was working again.
Living in a small apartment.
Attending financial counseling.
He had paid back part of what he owed.
The final line said:
I know I can never be Dad again.
I laughed when I read it.
Of course he couldn’t.
Richard had been terrible at repairing faucets and once drove eighty miles in the wrong direction because he refused to ask for directions.
He wasn’t a saint.
He was simply a man who understood something our son had forgotten.
