As the Canary Contract Expired, I Left New York Carrying My Father’s Ashes Chapter 07
The security checkpoint was temporarily cleared to make a path.
Caleb walked toward me from the far end.
He wasn’t wearing a jacket. His shirt was soaked through, and there were traces of hospital disinfectant on his cuffs. The collar that had always been perfectly pressed was now open, and his tie clip was gone.
He stopped two steps away from me.
His first words were still the same.
“Are you done throwing a fit?”
But his voice was shaking badly.
I didn’t answer.
It was as if Caleb couldn’t bear to wait for my response. He quickly pulled out a document and handed it to me.
“I’ve already picked out a spot in the family cemetery on Long Island. Your father liked peace and quiet. It’s by the ocean, and no one will disturb him.”
“The penthouse in Manhattan will be transferred to your name, along with five percent of my family shares. Just come home with me first.”
I glanced at the papers but didn’t take them.
His fingers tightened around the document until the pages crumpled.
“You think it’s not enough?” he asked. “Then tell me what else you want. Make a list.”
I shook my head.
“Caleb, my father didn’t like Long Island.”
He froze.
I said calmly, “He was afraid of heights. Before he was hospitalized, he told me that after he died, he wanted to go back south. He wanted Florida. Somewhere with sunlight.”
Caleb’s lips moved slightly.
He clearly didn’t remember.
“Then Florida.”
He immediately changed his answer.
“You choose the place. I’ll go with you.”
“I already chose.”
I walked around him and headed toward the boarding gate.
Caleb reached out to grab me, but the moment his hand touched my sleeve, he suddenly stopped.
“Nancy…”
That name made my steps slow for a second.
He seemed to have caught onto something. His eyes suddenly lit up.
“Your father’s death was an accident. I didn’t know he had already…”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
I turned around.
“You cut off my father’s medical care. You told the hospital not to report anything to me. Carol took three million dollars, and you let it happen. You made me beg on my knees for his next dialysis treatment.”
My voice remained calm.
“Every single step was a choice you made yourself.”
His throat moved.
“I just wanted you to give in. I never wanted him to die.”
“So what you’re afraid of now isn’t that you hurt someone.”
I reached into my pocket and took out the plastic ring.
Three years ago, at the Coney Island amusement park, Caleb had spent ten dollars trying to win a ring toss game.
He had slipped that cheap plastic ring onto my finger and laughed, saying that once my father got better, he would replace it with a real one.
Later, expensive diamonds and gemstones came into my life one after another.
But that plastic ring had stayed with me the entire time.
I dropped it into the trash can beside us.
“You just realized something for the first time, Caleb.”
I looked at him.
“Not everything in this world happens according to your plans. Some things escape your control. And when that happens, you can’t fix it.”
The color drained from Caleb’s face.
“Nancy. Don’t throw it away.”
He almost instinctively bent down to pick it up.
“That was ours.”
I looked at him coldly.
“Not anymore.”
He gripped the edge of the trash can and dropped to one knee. The veins on the back of his hand stood out.
“I was wrong.”
The words came out stiffly because he had never practiced saying them.
Don never apologized to anyone in the family.
But Caleb needed to apologize to the woman he loved.
“I shouldn’t have stopped the payments. I shouldn’t have made you go to that gallery. I shouldn’t have touched that wooden carving.”
He looked up at me.
“Come back. I’ll put everything back the way it was.”
For the first time, I saw something close to confusion on his face.
“Nothing can go back.”
I turned away.
“Caleb, you don’t love me. You’re just used to me standing in the same place forever, waiting for you to decide when to give me something sweet and when to take away my medicine.”
“You thought you could crush someone’s dignity, then throw them a piece of bread and call it mercy.”
I turned my back and scanned my boarding pass.
Suddenly, Caleb rushed past the security barrier.
Airport security reacted immediately. Several guards grabbed him and forced him down onto the floor. His bodyguards surged forward, and the entire area erupted into chaos.
His knee slammed hard against the tile.
His shirt tore open.
“Nancy!”
I kept walking.
Behind me came a muffled cough.
People around him gasped. I looked back once.
Caleb was clutching his stomach. Bright red blood seeped between his fingers. His guards and the emergency medical staff who had rushed over supported him, but he was still looking at me.
“Look at me one more time.”
I did.
But there was nothing left in that look that he wanted.
I whispered,
“Caleb. I don’t even want to waste the energy to hate you anymore.”
The boarding gate slowly closed behind me.