Paul Robertson: The Heir

And then, at the end, “Jason, my son. I trust you and I am proud of you. You will know what is right.”

It was too much and I was overwhelmed.

There was so much meaning in those words, and more in the words not there. There was no apology for what he knew he was doing to me, hardly even an acknowledgment of his own anguish. That he had left the note where I might never find it spoke much louder of despair than the words themselves.

But now I knew that I had been right. Melvin alone had known without question the truth of power and wealth, and he had answered my questions about them. I would never forget what I had learned.

If I’d found this note the first day, maybe I wouldn’t have lost Katie.

Eric was silent, working out his own understanding of these papers. Around us the light faded and the twilight deepened. All we knew was silence.

And in the silence, free of the babble of questions that had always torn at my mind and my thoughts, I knew that God had given me a life and a purpose.

I shivered in the growing dark, the paper in my hand that so perfectly expressed the man, my father, who’d written it-and that told me why I lived and what my purpose was. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.