Chapter 13 - The Long Game
By autumn, the leaves in Cambridge had turned to brilliant shades of copper and gold, crunching pleasantly underfoot whenever Margot and I walked down to the local library.
The restructuring of the Vance Family Trust was complete. Jonathan had successfully spun off the remaining non-liquid real estate assets into a charitable foundation managed independently by a board of trustees, ensuring that the properties—including the Wellesley estate—would serve as community housing and youth centers for decades to come.
Wallace was still in Worcester. I visited him twice over the summer, driving down alone while Margot stayed with a neighbor. He didn't yell anymore. He didn't throw crystal glasses or talk about empires. He sat in his armchair by the window, wearing a soft flannel shirt I had bought him, and asked me about my job at the municipal building.
"How are the requisition forms going, Desmond?" he asked during my last visit, his voice thin and hesitant.
"They're fine, Wallace," I told him, sitting in the straight-backed chair across from his bed. "We got a new copy machine last week. It actually collates."
Wallace had nodded slowly, a faint, ghost-like smile touching his lips. "Good. That’s... that’s important. Systems need to work."
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He didn't know I still owned the building he lived in, or that his medical care was funded by the very trust he thought he controlled. Some truths were kinder left unsaid.
Back in Cambridge, Cecilia had rented a small, modest apartment across town and taken a job as a senior administrative coordinator for a regional non-profit health initiative. She wasn't running a wellness empire anymore, and her name wasn't appearing in business magazines, but when I saw her at Sunday dinner—helping Margot shell peas at the kitchen table—she looked lighter, healthier, and infinitely more real than she ever had in her life.
