Chapter 10 - AARON'S LAST PLAN WAS FOR DELPHINE TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL
Inside Aaron’s employment file was a benefits election.
Health insurance.
Retirement.
Dependent coverage.
Josie.
Delphine.
Then tuition assistance.
Aaron had selected:
Spousal education benefit.
Delphine laughed through tears.
She had once talked about studying accounting.
Before Josie.
Before the boat.
Before debt.
Aaron remembered.
Then a handwritten note:
Del likes numbers better than she thinks. She catches bad invoices before I do.
She cried harder.
Elias stayed quiet.
Victor left the room.
Even Rosa pretended to clean something elsewhere.
Then Delphine found the last line.
If I get this job, she can stop working nights.
Aaron had been building an exit.
He just did not live to walk through it.
The Ferraro compliance position had never begun.
Legally, no employment benefits vested.
Elias could not pretend otherwise.
But he did something practical.
The independent Hion Ridge restitution board offered affected families training grants using recovered funds.
Delphine qualified.
Not special treatment.
She applied.
Accepted.
Bookkeeping and compliance certification.
Night classes.
Rosa adjusted her shifts.
Laundry owner did too.
Estate job remained gone.
Good.
Then Josie’s hearing evaluation progressed.
Doctors explained carefully.
Cochlear implant could help certain types of deafness.
Not “fix” her.
Not guarantee speech.
Josie herself had to be part of the decision.
Delphine made sure.
Through sign language, visual aids, pediatric specialists.
Josie wanted to try.
Not because she hated being deaf.
Because she wanted more options.
That distinction mattered.
Funding approved through the university program.
Then Delphine learned something uncomfortable.
The program’s original endowment donor:
Ferraro Foundation.
She marched into Elias’s office.
“You said you didn’t pay.”
“I didn’t.”
“Your name is on it.”
“My mother endowed it eleven years ago.”
“So you knew.”
“No.”
He looked offended.
“I don’t memorize every foundation grant.”
Victor from the corner:
“He barely memorizes birthdays.”
Elias glared.
Delphine almost laughed.
The program was independently administered.
No special admission.
Good.
She kept Josie enrolled.
Then Camille requested a meeting with Elias.
Delphine learned later.
Not her business.
Camille apologized.
Returned the engagement ring.
Agreed to testify against Harold.
Then told Elias she planned to sell her gallery and move temporarily to Charleston to sort her father’s estate.
He wished her well.
No reconciliation.
Too much broken trust.
Still, no hatred.
Then Camille gave him one document to pass to Delphine.
Thomas Ashford’s final journal page.
It read:
Aaron Aubrey was the first man in years who looked at our system and refused to call theft “business.”
Delphine framed that line.
Not because Aaron was perfect.
Because he had tried.
Then three months passed.
Delphine finished her first certification module.
Elias did not ask her to dinner.
That annoyed her.
She hated that.
Then one rainy afternoon, she saw him outside the community college.
Not waiting for her.
Meeting a professor about a port-worker compliance partnership.
Coincidence.
He saw her.
“Claire—”
Wrong woman? No, Delphine. Need fix. Let's correct.
He said:
“Delphine.”
“Yes?”
“Coffee?”
She thought.
Then:
“One coffee.”
His expression changed.
“Is that a yes?”
“Do not make me regret it.”
He smiled.
May you like
Their first date began beside a vending machine with terrible coffee.
And neither of them mentioned money for twenty-seven minutes.
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