Chapter 6 - The Confession in Room 312
An hour later, the nurse at the station cleared me to enter Room 312.
The room was dim, lit only by the steady, rhythmic green blips of the heart monitor. My father lay propped up against the pillows, an IV drip in his left arm, looking astonishingly small in the hospital gown. His silver hair was disheveled, and his skin had a gray, papery pallor.
He heard the door click open and turned his head slowly.
When he saw it was me, his expression hardened, though he lacked the energy to raise his voice.
"What do you want?" he rasped, staring at the ceiling. "Did you come to check if I'm dead yet?"
I walked to the side of the bed and pulled up a metal chair. I sat down, resting my hands in my lap.
"Mom said you asked for an update on the Vanguard investment."
Dad closed his eyes tightly. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
"It's a scam," he muttered, the words tasting like poison in his mouth. "The whole thing. Vance took the $350,000, and the wire never hit the escrow account. It went straight to a personal shell entity in the Bahamas."
"I know," I said.
Dad snapped his eyes open, staring at me. "You know? How could you know?"
"I work in commercial real estate, Dad. I saw Vance's portfolio come across my desk at work two days ago. My firm is issuing an appraisal report this week that proves those properties are worthless."
He stared at me as if I were speaking a foreign language.
"You knew," he repeated, his voice shaking. "You knew he was a crook, and you didn't say anything?"
"You cut me off on Friday, Dad," I reminded him, my voice completely steady. "You told me I was a mistake. You told me I was dead to the family, not to call you, and never to ask for help. Why would I look at your investment portfolio?"
"Because I'm your father!" he roared, trying to sit up, which immediately set off a warning chirp on the heart monitor.
"Stop," I said, standing up and reaching for the call button to quiet the machine. "Stop shouting. You're in a cardiac unit."
He sank back against the pillows, chest heaving. Tears of helpless rage leaked from the corners of his eyes.
"I lost everything, Sloan," he whispered, the hardness finally melting into pure, unadulterated despair. "The house is mortgaged to the hilt. Fallon's boutique has a tax lien. Grady's app is worthless. And your mother... your mother doesn't know about the second mortgage I took out on the Ansley Park house to fund the rest of Vance's deal."
I stood beside the bed, looking down at the man who had spent my entire life telling me I wasn't enough.
"You built your entire life on appearances, Dad," I said gently. "You spent money you didn't have to prove you were wealthier than you were, and you sacrificed my education, my confidence, and my emotional well-being to prop up Fallon."
"I was trying to protect our family," he choked out.
"No. You were trying to protect your ego."
The room was silent except for the steady beep of the monitor.
"What am I going to do, Sloan?" he asked, his voice breaking completely. "The bank is going to foreclose on the house. We're going to lose everything."
I pulled a white envelope from my blazer pocket and laid it gently on the small bedside table next to his water pitcher.
"What's that?" he asked suspiciously.
"That's my $20,000 Global Excellence Honor Award prize check," I said. "Uncashed."
He stared at the envelope, then up at me, confusion warring with shame in his eyes. "You... you brought this for me?"
"No," I said. "I brought it to show you something."
I reached into my bag, pulled out a printed copy of my student loan payoff confirmation statement, and laid it beside the envelope.
"My student loans are paid in full as of this morning," I said. "I used my personal savings to clear the balance. That $20,000 check? I deposited it into a high-yield savings account this morning under my own name."
Dad stared at the papers. "Then why did you bring the envelope?"
"To show you what it looks like when someone earns money honestly, without scamming investors, without relying on shell companies, and without tearing down the people who love them."
I stepped back toward the door.
"Sloan—"
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"Get some rest, Dad. The doctors said stress-induced hypertension requires a calm environment. And trust me, I'm the last person who's going to stress you out anymore."
I opened the door and walked out into the hallway, leaving him alone with his silence.
