Chapter 13
The Inner Chair returned one final time.
Not to power.
To the workshop.
I had kept it after Sebastian’s arrest inside the family structure.
For months it sat under a dust sheet.
Ada finally asked:
“Why?”
I had no good answer.
History?
Symbol?
Fear?
Maybe all.
So we removed the cover.
Dark wood.
Bellini crest.
Heavy enough that generations had mistaken weight for legitimacy.
Ada touched the armrest.
“This thing caused all that?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
Good.
“The belief around it did.”
Better.
We decided not to burn it.
Too theatrical.
Not to preserve it.
Too reverent.
We dismantled it.
The wood became shelves in the Bellini family library.
Ordinary shelves.
Books sat on what used to be authority.
Ada loved that.
Sebastian heard and sent one message:
BARBARIC.
I laughed.
Then placed my mother’s black notebook on the middle shelf.
Not hidden.
Not sacred.
Available to future heads.
With one note from me inside:
Read this before believing tradition is neutral.
Ada wrote beneath it:
And ask whether the person calling something tradition benefits from it.
I looked at her.
“Show-off.”
She smiled.
The library felt lighter after that.
No chair.
No empty place waiting for someone to imagine it belonged to them.
May you like
Just shelves.
Funny how much trouble furniture can cause when men are insecure.
