Chapter 18 - What My Father Actually Owned
Months later, I finally asked Dad the question everyone else had asked first.
“How much are you worth?”
He hated it.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Markets.”
“Dad.”
He sighed.
“About 4.7 billion.”
I stared.
“The tape works.”
“I hate helicopters.”
“You could buy a new house.”
“I like mine.”
“You could have paid for college.”
“I did.”
I stopped.
“What?”
He smiled.
“Scholarship foundation.”
I stared.
The anonymous engineering scholarship that covered my final two years.
Dad.
“You lied.”
“I never said I didn’t.”
“That is not a defense.”
“No.”
He had a lot to learn too.
So did I.
We spent that summer sorting records in the basement archive.
Mom’s letters.
Patent sketches.
Old pay stubs.
Photos.
I found a picture of Dad at twenty-nine, holding me in one arm and a welding helmet in the other.
He looked terrified.
On the back, Mom had written:
Arthur thinks money will change him.
He does not understand that fear already has.
I showed him.
He sat quietly.
“She knew me.”
“Apparently better than you did.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
He smiled.
To me.
Never delivered.
Blake,
If your father ever becomes important enough that people treat him differently, watch who he was before they knew.
I read it twice.
That was the wedding.
Exactly.
Dad asked:
“What does it say?”
I handed it to him.
He cried.
Quietly.
Then he said:
“Cancel my wedding?”
“Choose yourself.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
“What?”
“I chose you.”
He shook his head.
“You chose what you believed was right.”
May you like
That distinction mattered.
And it was the first time I understood why being his son had never been about inheriting his money.
