The Love I Buried With My Grandma Chapter 09

The Love I Buried With My Grandma Chapter 09

“Daniel. I will never forgive you. Not ever.”

I turned to leave.

He dropped to his knees, hard.

His kneecaps hit the stone with a sharp, ugly crack.

I looked back. His face had gone hollow with defeat.

“You win, Nora.”

“I’m begging you- even if you won’t come back, can you at least line up an investor for me?”

“Whatever we make, we’ll split fifty-fifty!”

“No.”

My voice wasn’t loud. But it was loud enough for him to hear clearly.

I shut the door, sealing out every sound from outside.

Daniel didn’t leave. He knelt out there the entire night.

[ felt nothing.

The next morning, walking past him on my way to work, I didn’t even break stride.

He tried to call out to me.

But after a night with no water, he couldn’t even manage that.

By the time I got home that evening, he was gone.

A neighbor said he’d been carried off in an ambulance.

I laughed a little and said, “He had it coming.”

Daniel must have finally understood I really wasn’t going to help him anymore.

He stopped coming around.

People in the art world told me he started chasing investors like a man possessed.

But he neither drinks nor keeps the company, and his reputation in tatters, he couldn’t land a single one.

The rising star had gone dark, just like that.

I didn’t give it another thought.

Around that time, I’d chosen a small nonprofit dedicated to helping Alzheimer’s patients, and we were about

to discuss a partnership.

Today was the meeting.

The director was a young woman who met me at a coffee shop.

She handed me their plan for the coming year.

“Miss Whitfield, this is our proposal. Take a look.”

I read through it, asked a few questions, decided I liked it, and agreed to fund it on the spot.

She thanked me over and over, gripping my hands.

“Miss Whitfield, thank you so much-truly-for bringing us this investment.”

“Alzheimer’s is such a cruel thing. They forget people, forget everything, eventually forget how to even take

care of themselves. So many families give up on their elders because of it.”

“Because of you, they have a little more hope now.”

“Really- thank… thank you.”

Her voice cracked.

I handed her a tissue.

“Don’t mention it. I’m not doing this out of pure kindness. I just don’t want to see people work their whole

lives and end up abandoned like that.”

Somehow, Daniel found out about it.

That night he cornered me in the stairwell.

“Nora, you’ll help every dying old man and woman in this city, and you won’t help me?!”

“I’m still your husband!”

I stared at his bloodshot eyes, perfectly composed.

“We’re divorced.”

“I never signed it!”

He grabbed my arm hard and started dragging me toward the stairs.

“Come on, we’re getting that investment back—it’s going into my studio!”

I wrenched my arm free, voice cold.

“Does it matter whether you sign it? The court already finalized our divorce.”

“And that donation to the nonprofit-there’s no way I’m pulling it back.”

Daniel’s eyes went wide, something unhinged flickering across his face.

“Nora Whitfield. Are you trying to push me to the edge?!”

Something was off. Frowning, I instinctively stepped back.