My dearest Nelson,
I have been trying to write this letter for weeks, and every time I sit down to it, the words run away from me. There is so much to tell you, and so little time in a day to tell it properly. So I will begin at the beginning, as you always told me to do, and I will try to be plain, as you always asked me to be.
Our son pushed me into the Danube. I write it down because I still cannot quite believe it, even now, months later, with the hearing over and the arrests made and the company safe again. He pushed me from the deck of the Danube Empress on the night of our sixtieth anniversary cruise, near the Wachau Valley, at dusk, when the light was the colour of old gold and the river was calm. I thought I would die in that water. I did not. A lock-keeper named Kieran pulled me out, and I have been trying to be worthy of that second chance ever since.
You would have wanted to know why, and the why is this: Landon and the chief financial officer, Xavier Wexford, had been stealing from the company for years, paying false invoices for repairs that never happened, funnelling the money through a shell company called Alpen Trade. I found out, and I was about to call for an independent audit. That is why he pushed me. He wanted me gone, and he wanted the company, and he was willing to do murder to have them both.
I fought back, Nelson. I hope you would be proud of the way I fought. I had my old logbook, the one I kept for forty years, recording every real repair on every boat, and it proved the invoices were false. Wesley, our grandson, traced the bank records and found the money flowing to Landon. Renata, our housekeeper, heard them arguing about the invoices. Yvonne, Landon's wife, heard him say the night before the cruise that I had to go, and she found the courage to tell the truth about it. Kieran saw Landon on the deck that night. And in the company's archive, in the locked cabinet, I found the original power of attorney I signed when I was ill, the one that covered medical decisions only, and the partnership agreement we signed together all those years ago, the one that says the fleet cannot be sold without both founders' signatures. Landon had used that paper to sell the Wachau Queen and the Vienna Star to Fenella Waverly for a fraction of their worth. Fenella returned them, and she testified against him. In the end, the truth was stronger than the lie, as you always said it would be.
Landon and Xavier were arrested at the hearing in Vienna, in front of everyone. Rhys, the chairman, resigned the next day. I have taken the chair again, and Wesley has become our operations director. He is a fine young man, Nelson, a river pilot through and through, and he will run the company from the water up, the way we always did. The two boats are home, and they are safe. I have established a foundation to preserve them, and the other historic boats of the river, so that no one can ever sell them again.
Yvonne has stayed close to us through all of this, and I am grateful for her courage. She could have kept silent, and no one would have blamed her, but she chose to tell the truth about what she heard, and the truth helped bring her husband to justice. I do not know what the future holds for her, but I know she will always have a home with us, and a place in this company, for as long as she wants one.
Kieran has become a dear friend, and I do not use that word lightly. He pulled me from the river and gave me shelter when I had nowhere else to go, and he asked for nothing in return. He has visited Vienna since, and he will come again. There are some debts that cannot be repaid, only honoured, and I intend to honour this one for the rest of my life.
I am seventy-two now, and I do not pretend that I have as many years ahead of me as I have behind me. But I have the company, and the foundation, and Wesley at the helm, and the river still running past my window every morning. That is enough, and it is more than I dared to hope for on the night I went into the water. I will keep steering, as you taught me, for as long as I am able.
I miss you, my love. I miss your laugh, and your patience, and the way you could calm a room simply by walking into it. There were nights during all of this when I wanted nothing more than to hear your voice telling me what to do next. But then I remembered what you told me on the day we founded this company: that a river does not stop for anyone, and that the only thing to do is to keep steering. So I kept steering, and here we are.
The river is still there, Nelson. The Danube Empress sails on. And I am still here, keeping our promise. I will love you until the river runs dry.
Your Theodora
Chapter 43
— The Lock-Keeper's Visit