Chapter 10 - WHAT NORA COPIED
I wanted to be angry with my daughter.
Part of me was.
She had invaded Chloe’s privacy.
Copied files she did not understand.
Taken risks an eleven-year-old should never have to take.
But the flash drive also contained the first evidence that Chloe might not be solely responsible for the academic fraud.
There were emails from Dr. Martin Hale.
Delete outliers.
Recode noncompliant responses.
We need significance before the grant review.
One message was worse.
Don’t ask where the expanded participant file came from. Use it.
Chloe stared at the screen.
“I deleted these.”
Nora shrugged.
“They were in the trash.”
Thomas muttered:
“I like this kid.”
I gave him a look.
“Do not encourage her.”
Nora smiled anyway.
Chloe began crying.
“He told me this was normal.”
“Did you know it wasn’t?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not complete innocence.
Not complete guilt.
Something more realistic.
A person under pressure who made choices and then kept making worse ones.
I looked at her.
“If you want a future, stop defending the version of you who did this.”
She wiped her eyes.
“What does that mean?”
“Tell the university everything.”
“I could lose the program.”
“You may already have.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
I laughed.
“No. It isn’t.”
She looked at me.
“For ten years, every time our parents praised you, they used me as the example of what failure looked like. You were the proof I wasn’t enough.”
Chloe lowered her eyes.
I continued.
“I’m not asking you to lose everything because I want revenge.”
“Then why?”
“Because if you lie again, you become Dad.”
That landed.
The next morning, Chloe went into the disciplinary hearing with an attorney and the copied emails.
I waited outside with Nora.
Two hours passed.
Then three.
When Chloe emerged, her eyes were swollen.
“Well?”
“I told them everything.”
“And?”
“They suspended me for one year.”
I exhaled.
“They’re opening a separate investigation into Dr. Hale.”
“What about your dissertation?”
“I have to withdraw it.”
Nora asked:
“Can you ever finish?”
Chloe looked at her.
“Maybe. But I’ll have to start most of the research over.”
Nora nodded.
“That sounds fair.”
Chloe laughed.
“Brutal.”
“Still fair.”
For the first time, they smiled at each other.
Then Thomas called me.
“Come to my attorney’s office.”
“What happened?”
“Northbridge responded.”
My stomach tightened.
“About the forged deed?”
“About everything.”
We arrived forty minutes later.
Thomas’s lawyer placed a thick file in front of me.
Northbridge denied knowing my signatures were forged.
They blamed Dad.
But they had attached loan records.
One stood out.
Dated twelve years earlier.
Borrower:
Robert Bennett.
Collateral:
Willow Street property.
Purpose:
Medical expenses.
I stared.
“Whose medical expenses?”
Thomas’s face darkened.
“That’s what we need to ask Eleanor.”
Mom.
The loan amount was $73,000.
At the bottom was a hospital name.
St. Catherine’s Fertility Center.
Chloe stopped breathing.
I looked at her.
Then at the year.
May you like
Twenty-seven years ago.
The year Chloe was born.
