Chapter 10 - The Debt I Wanted to Pay
I offered Elias ten million dollars.
He nearly threw me out.
“No.”
“You saved my life.”
“No.”
“You paid for—”
“No.”
“You let me live here.”
“Amelia.”
“I can afford it.”
“That’s why the answer is no.”
I stared.
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s unacceptable.”
He laughed.
I did not.
Three days later, I returned with Nina and Maya.
Elias opened the door.
“You brought reinforcements.”
“Yes.”
Nina handed him a folder.
Inside was a proposal.
Not charity.
Not repayment.
A nonprofit medical foundation.
Its purpose: restore sight to patients unable to afford surgery.
The old Grant Vision Outreach property would be purchased from the bank, renovated, and reopened.
Nina would serve as medical director.
Elias would serve as founding chairman—if he wanted.
He looked at me.
“You did this behind my back.”
“I learned from my husband.”
“That is not funny.”
“A little.”
He looked down at the papers.
The name on the proposal was:
THE REBECCA GRANT CENTER FOR SIGHT RESTORATION
Elias stopped breathing.
I continued softly.
“You told me you stopped being useful after Rebecca died.”
His eyes filled.
“You were wrong.”
He closed the folder.
“I can’t accept this because I saved you.”
“Then don’t.”
“What?”
“Accept it because someone else is blind right now and can be helped.”
Silence.
“Accept it because Nina needs the clinic.”
Nina nodded solemnly.
“Absolutely. I am very needy.”
I continued.
“Accept it because Rebecca built something worth continuing.”
Elias looked away.
“And accept it because I need my second life to create something better than a revenge story.”
That broke him.
He sat down.
For the first time since I had known him, Elias cried openly.
I sat beside him.
He took my hand.
“You don’t owe me a life, Amelia.”
“I know.”
That was the point.
Julian had turned every gift into a debt.
Elias never did.
So I was finally able to give without being trapped by it.
Six months later, construction began.
We restored the original brick building.
Kept Rebecca’s old office.
Built three surgical suites.
Added rehabilitation rooms.
Created transportation grants for rural patients.
The first patient was a seventy-two-year-old woman named Dorothy Miles.
After cataract surgery, she saw her granddaughter clearly for the first time in seven years.
She cried.
Her granddaughter cried.
Nina cried.
I cried.
Elias pretended he had dust in his eye.
“There is no dust,” I told him.
“Construction dust.”
“We finished construction.”
“Persistent dust.”
May you like
I laughed.
For once, tears felt good.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(1048x378:1050x380)/Jenna-Bush-Hager-100223-c94955eb572d47ea815a340c18c6e771.jpg)
