Rachel stared at the table. Derek looked like he was about to faint.
“Second option,” I continued. “You sign the documents Nora prepared. You confess everything in writing. The document will be kept in a safe. If anything, natural or not, happens to me, it will be immediately handed over to the authorities.”
“And in return?” Derek asked, his voice barely audible.
“In return, you disappear from my life forever. No contact, no attempts at reconciliation, no asking for money. You take what you have and leave the country. You start a new life, far away from me.”
Nora slid a thick document across the table. It was the confession, detailed and relentless, accompanied by a legal agreement that bound them to never contact me again.
“And the money?” Rachel asked, her eyes finally meeting mine. Even now, cornered, all she thought about was money.
“Most of it goes to the Robert Foundation, as planned,” I replied. “But I am willing to pay off your debts, on the condition that you never return.”
A tense silence settled in the room. Finally, Rachel reached for the pen. “We have no choice,” she muttered to Derek. “It’s this or jail.”
As they signed, I felt an emptiness expanding inside me. This was the end. When they finished, Nora collected the papers. “Mr. Miller will accompany you to your apartment to collect your essential belongings,” she informed them. “You have forty-eight hours to leave the country.”
As they stood up to leave, I had one last question. “Why, Rachel? Really. Not the abandonment story. You know it’s not true. I gave you everything.”
She finally looked up, and I saw something I had never noticed before: a deep, profound emptiness. “Because it was easier,” she answered with terrifying honesty. “Easier than working, than saving, than building something from scratch like you did. Easier than admitting we had ruined our lives.”
Her words hung in the air like a poison. “Goodbye, Rachel,” I said, each word a heavy stone. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
She didn’t reply. She simply followed Derek and Martin out of the room without looking back. The door closed with a soft click, and suddenly I knew my daughter was gone. The person I loved, the one I had raised, no longer existed. Perhaps she never had.