CHAPTER 5: WHAT MONEY COULDN'T BUY
Richard reduced his workload.
Not symbolically.
Actually.
He delegated acquisitions.
Stopped traveling four nights a week.
Blocked school pickups on his calendar.
His board complained.
The company survived.
The first afternoon Richard waited outside Sophie's school, she walked past him.
Then stopped.
She turned around.
“Daddy?”
He smiled.
“Hi.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Picking you up.”
“Why?”
The question nearly destroyed him.
“Because I'm your dad.”
Sophie considered that.
“Are you going back to work?”
“Eventually.”
“Today?”
“No.”
She ran into his arms.
Richard caught her.
There were still difficult days.
Days Sophie wouldn't speak.
Days she cried for Claire.
Days Richard sat on the bathroom floor because guilt became physically unbearable.
Dr. Brooks helped him understand something he desperately needed to hear.
“Guilt can tell you what matters,” she said. “But if you turn it into self-punishment, Sophie ends up taking care of your feelings. She needs a father, not a defendant.”
So Richard stopped asking Sophie to forgive him.
Instead, he became someone she could trust.
He attended school plays.
Learned how she liked her sandwiches cut.
Sat through animated movies he didn't understand.
Let her tape drawings to walls Vanessa had kept pristine.
The mansion changed.
Crayons appeared on tables.
Shoes appeared beneath couches.
Fingerprints appeared on glass.
The house became less perfect.
It also became a home.
One Sunday, Sophie brought Richard a drawing.
Two people sat at a table.
A woman with wings stood behind them.
“That's Mommy,” Sophie explained.
Richard swallowed.
“And that's us?”
Sophie nodded.
Then she pointed at the enormous yellow circle above them.
“That's the sun.”
Richard smiled.
“It's very big.”
“Mommy liked sunshine.”
“Yes,” Richard whispered. “She did.”
May you like
Sophie leaned against him.
This time, nobody told her to stop talking about Claire.
