Chapter 9 - The Second Chance
The second pregnancy was easier than the first, in every way.
Emily had Elias this time. He went to every doctor’s appointment, rubbed her feet when they swelled, stayed up with her when she couldn’t sleep, built the new baby’s nursery himself (with a little help from Mike, who’d turned out to be surprisingly good with a drill). They found out at the twenty-week ultrasound they were having a little girl. They named her Grace Margaret Voss—Grace because it was the name Emily had always loved, Margaret because, despite everything, she wanted to give her daughter a piece of the family she’d come from, a chance to be better than the name had once stood for.
Grace was born in early May, after a quick, easy labor, at the same hospital where Liam had been born. This time, there was no Margaret or Charles bursting in with share-transfer folders. No cold words. No threats. Just Elias, holding Emily’s hand, crying when he heard Grace’s first cry, cutting the umbilical cord himself, holding his tiny daughter like she was the most precious thing in the world.
Liam, now two and a half, came to visit the next day with Marta, holding a crumpled drawing he’d made of his new sister. He climbed onto the hospital bed, leaning in to kiss Grace’s forehead, then looked up at Emily and said, “Mine.”
Everyone in the room laughed.
Life settled into a perfect, chaotic rhythm after that. Emily ran Voss Community Partners, which had now grown to over 200 employees, building affordable housing all across the Midwest, helping thousands of families find safe, decent homes. Elias ran Voss Capital, which had grown to $8B in assets, but he made sure he was home every night by six for dinner with his family, no work calls, no emails. Weekends were for soccer practice (Liam had just started playing), dance class (they’d signed Grace up for baby ballet the second she turned one), lazy mornings in pajamas eating pancakes, trips to the zoo, visits to Elias’s mom’s house for Sunday dinner.
They were the most beloved family in Chicago. The press called them “the Vosses: Chicago’s First Family of Good.” Their annual holiday party for low-income kids was the most anticipated event of the year, with over 2,000 kids coming every December to get toys, meet Santa, eat cookies. They donated over $50M a year to local charities: schools, food banks, domestic violence shelters, single mom support groups.
And then, three years after Grace was born, the letter came.
It was from a lawyer in Fort Myers. Addressed to Emily.
She opened it after dinner one night, while Elias was helping Liam with his homework and Grace was coloring on the floor. The letter was short, formal, to the point:
Dear Ms. Voss,
I am writing to inform you that your mother, Margaret Carter, passed away earlier this week after a short battle with lung cancer. Per her last will and testament, she has left you a small box of personal items, and a letter to be delivered to you upon her death. Your father, Charles Carter, is still living, but is in poor health following a stroke last year. He has asked if you would be willing to visit him one last time, to say goodbye.
Please contact me at your earliest convenience to make arrangements.
Sincerely,
David Henderson, Esq.
Emily sat at the kitchen table, the letter in her hand, staring at nothing. Elias noticed her face, told the kids to go play in the living room, then sat down next to her, putting his arm around her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.
Emily handed him the letter. He read it, his face going quiet. “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”
Emily shook her head. “I’m not sad. Not really. I haven’t talked to her in four years. I didn’t even know she was sick. I just… I don’t know what to do. Do I go? Do I see Charles? What if it’s a trick? What if he’s just trying to get money out of me?”
Elias took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “It’s not a trick. He’s old. He’s sick. He lost his wife. His son is in prison. He’s got nothing left. He just wants to see his daughter before he dies. You don’t owe him anything. But if you want to go, I’ll go with you. If you don’t, that’s okay too. Whatever you decide, I’m right here.”
Emily thought about it for two days. She thought about the letter Margaret had sent after the trial, the one that said she was sorry. She thought about the little girl she’d been, the one who’d just wanted her mom to love her, to be proud of her. She thought about her own kids—Liam and Grace—and how she’d do anything for them, how she’d never let them feel the way she’d felt growing up.
In the end, she decided to go.
She and Elias flew down to Fort Myers on a private jet the next weekend, leaving the kids with Marta. They took a taxi from the airport to the address the lawyer had given them: a small, run-down condo complex in a working-class neighborhood, a far cry from the Winnetka mansion Emily had grown up in.
Charles was sitting on the porch when they arrived, in a wheelchair, his hair white, his face thin, half his body paralyzed from the stroke. A nurse was sitting next to him, fanning him with a magazine. When he saw Emily, his face lit up, then crumpled into tears.
“Emily,” he said, his voice slurred, weak. “You came.”
Emily walked up the steps, stopping a few feet away from him. Elias stayed by the car, giving her space. “Hi, Dad.”
The nurse wheeled Charles inside the small, cluttered condo. It smelled like old coffee and medicine. There were photos everywhere—photos of Brandon in his high school football uniform, photos of Charles and Margaret on their wedding day, a single, framed photo of Emily at her college graduation, sitting on the coffee table. Charles saw her looking at it.
“Margaret put that there,” he said, his voice quiet. “She looked at it every day. She was so proud of you. Of what you built. Of the kids. She read every article about you. Every Facebook post. She loved Liam and Grace so much, even though she never got to meet them.”
He paused, coughing, the nurse patting his back. “I’m sorry, Emily. For everything. For the fraud. For disowning you. For letting Brandon treat you like garbage. For being the worst father in the world. I was greedy. I was stupid. I cared more about the company and the money and what people thought than I did about my own daughter. I lost everything because of it. Margaret is dead. Brandon is going to die in prison. I’m stuck in this chair, alone, waiting to die. It’s what I deserve. But I needed to tell you I’m sorry. Before I go.”
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small velvet box, and handed it to her. “This is for you. From Margaret. She wanted you to have it.”
Emily opened the box. Inside was a small, simple gold locket. She opened it. On one side was a photo of her when she was five years old, grinning with missing front teeth. On the other side was a photo of Liam and Grace, clipped from a magazine article about Emily, with Margaret’s handwriting scrawled on the back: My beautiful grandchildren.
Emily’s eyes filled with tears. She sat down next to her father, taking his cold, shaking hand in hers. “I forgive you, Dad.”
It wasn’t easy to say. It didn’t erase all the years of hurt, all the insults, all the pain. But it was the right thing to do. For him. For her. For her own kids, who she never wanted to grow up with hate in their hearts.
Charles cried, squeezing her hand as hard as he could. “Thank you. Thank you, baby. I love you.”
He died three weeks later, in his sleep. Emily and Elias flew down for the funeral. It was small—only the lawyer, the nurse, and a few neighbors. Emily spoke, telling stories about the good parts of her dad: the way he’d taught her to ride a bike, the way he’d snuck her cookies before dinner when her mom wasn’t looking, the way he’d cheered the loudest at her high school soccer games. She didn’t mention the fraud, or the trial, or the bad parts. She just remembered the good. Because people are complicated. They can be cruel and kind, greedy and loving, terrible and wonderful, all at the same time.
Brandon was allowed to come to the funeral from prison, in handcuffs, guarded by two deputies. He was thinner now, his hair cut short, his face hard. He walked up to Emily after the service, his eyes down.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rough. “For everything. For the threats. For the break-in. For being the worst brother in the world. I was jealous of you. I always was. You were smarter, better, kinder. I knew Dad should have picked you to run the company, not me. So I tried to tear you down to make myself feel big. It didn’t work. I ended up with nothing. You ended up with everything. You deserve it. All of it.”
He paused, then looked up at her. “Tell Liam and Grace I said hi. Tell them their uncle is sorry he’ll never get to know them.”
Emily nodded. “I will.”
The deputies led him away, back to the prison van, back to the twenty years he still had left to serve. Emily watched him go, then felt Elias’s hand on her shoulder.
May you like
“Ready to go home?” he asked.
She looked at her parents’ grave, at the small headstone that read Charles and Margaret Carter: Beloved Parents, then turned to Elias, smiling. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”
