Chapter 11 - Daniel Cole Did Not Forgive Him
Daniel agreed to meet William.
Ryan did not arrange it.
Daniel did.
They met at a rehabilitation center garden in Reno.
Clare did not go.
Neither did reporters.
William told her about it afterward.
Daniel walked slowly with a cane.
William began:
“I'm sorry.”
Daniel interrupted.
“I know.”
William did not know what to say.
Daniel continued.
“You've been sorry twenty-five years. Doesn't fix my hand.”
“No.”
“Doesn't give me my work back.”
“No.”
“Doesn't fix Ryan either.”
That hurt.
William asked:
“What happened to him?”
Daniel looked angry.
“You happened to him.”
Then:
“And I did.”
For years Daniel had fed Ryan stories about William.
Some true.
Some sharpened by pain.
He raised his son believing revenge was memory.
“I made him think hating you was loyalty to me.”
William said nothing.
Daniel looked at him.
“But what he did to that girl is his.”
Not William’s.
Not Daniel’s.
Ryan’s.
That mattered.
Then William asked the question he had carried for decades.
“Can you forgive me?”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
William nodded.
He stood.
Daniel stopped him.
“I didn't say you should stop being better.”
May you like
William told Clare that sentence twice.
She thought she understood why.
