Chapter 14 - Sloan And Naomi Rewrite Their Family
Sloan and Naomi did not become sisters overnight.
Technically Naomi was Sloan’s aunt.
Emotionally they were strangers.
Sloan wanted closeness.
Naomi wanted caution.
Sloan respected that.
They met occasionally during the restitution project.
Naomi told stories about Ruth.
Sloan told stories about Augustus.
Some were painful.
Some were funny.
Neither woman demanded the other adopt her version of him.
To Naomi, Augustus was the man who abandoned her mother before trying to
make amends.
To Sloan, he was the grandfather who taught her to fish, attended every
school performance, and left behind a moral problem disguised as real
estate.
Both men were the same person.
The restitution program eventually validated numerous claims.
Other claims were rejected for insufficient evidence.
Naomi insisted on that too.
The fund was not guilt money handed out indiscriminately.
It was restitution based on documented harm.
Sloan volunteered with the archive but did not control decisions.
She used part of her separate inheritance to support legal-aid services
for elderly homeowners.
She did not call it repayment on behalf of Augustus.
She could not personally erase his actions.
Flynn completed the divorce without further property demands.
He surrendered claims against Sloan’s remaining inheritance.
Not as a heroic gesture.
His legal position had weakened, and he finally stopped fighting.
Sloan accepted the settlement.
She did not need him transformed into a perfect man before she could
move on.
He had failed her when it mattered.
He later behaved better.
Both facts could remain true.
Cordelia had no contact with Sloan.
That boundary remained firm.
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For the first time in years, Sloan’s life stopped revolving around what
the Vale family wanted from her.
