I had never met him. Denise had mentioned that he lived in Oregon with his family and rarely returned east.
Richard continued.
“Your father thought accepting Pierce’s changes would destroy the point of the project. I thought losing the project would destroy the company.”
“So you voted against him.”
“We were equal partners. Neither of us could force the other.”
“What happened?”
“I found another way.”
There was no pride in his voice.
“I bought Daniel out.”
I frowned.
“He agreed?”
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
Richard looked directly at me.
“Because your mother was sick.”
My breath caught.
“My mother wasn’t sick when I was six.”
“You didn’t know.”
I shook my head.
“She had a heart condition. But that wasn’t diagnosed until later.”
Richard nodded slowly.
“It had been discovered earlier than you were told.”
I stared at him.
“My parents hid it?”
“From you. You were a child.”
That was believable.
Painfully believable.
My parents had spent most of my childhood protecting me from problems they considered adult business.
“Your father needed financial certainty,” Richard said. “I offered to buy his share.”
“And he accepted.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Richard named a figure.
Even adjusted for the time period, it wasn’t much.
I looked at him.
“That was half the company?”
“Yes.”
“Was that fair?”
“No.”
Ethan looked sharply at his father.
Richard didn’t defend himself.
“I told Daniel the company might fail. That Pierce could walk away. That the land deal might collapse. All technically true.”
“But you thought it would succeed.”
“I believed it would.”
The words sat heavily between us.
Ethan moved away from the wall.
“You cheated him.”
Richard flinched.
“I took advantage of his fear.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No,” I said quietly.
Both men looked at me.
“It isn’t.”
Ethan frowned.
I continued.
“One is illegal. The other is something people can regret for the rest of their lives.”
Richard’s eyes dropped.
I wasn’t protecting him.
I simply wanted the truth to remain precise.
“What did my father say?”
“That someday I would understand what I’d traded away.”
“For money?”
Richard shook his head.
“For control.”
He looked toward Ethan.
“At thirty, I believed owning something meant you had succeeded.”
“And now?”
“Now I spend half my life wondering why everything I own requires so much effort to keep.”
Ethan stared at him.
That sentence seemed intended for more than the old company.
I sensed a conversation between father and son that had been happening silently for years.
Richard continued.
“After Daniel left, Pierce pushed the changes. I approved some. Refused others. We argued constantly. Eventually I bought him out too.”
“So the neighborhood stayed close to my father’s plan.”
“Closer than Daniel ever knew.”
I looked around.
“Did you ever tell him?”
“I tried.”
“Tried?”
Richard stood and walked toward one of the filing cabinets.
“He returned every letter.”
That sounded like my father.
When Daniel Mercer decided a relationship was finished, he rarely revisited it.
Not out of cruelty.
Finality was simply one of his weaknesses.
Richard opened the bottom drawer.
Inside was a small metal box.
No lock.
