Chapter 8
Lucille called me sentimental.
I called a meeting anyway.
Not a council.
Kitchen staff.
Estate managers.
Guards.
Family event coordinators.
The people who actually saw what happened around children while capos discussed territory elsewhere.
I asked one question.
“What rules exist because Lucille said they exist?”
The room stayed silent for almost a minute.
Then the answers came.
Children from junior branches seated separately.
Staff families eating after blood relatives at holiday events.
Widowed relatives needing Lucille’s approval before bringing guests.
Younger women expected to serve coffee at senior dinners.
Children required to greet elders before eating.
Dessert withheld for “poor behavior.”
Nothing individually dramatic.
Together?
A private government.
I had allowed my aunt to run an entire layer of Montaro life because nobody called it command.
That was my failure.
One event coordinator said:
“Ms. Lucille always says household respect keeps the men from fighting.”
Maybe once.
Maybe that belief even came from somewhere sincere.
But peace purchased through making weaker people absorb tension is not peace.
It is distribution.
Then an older cook named Rosa spoke.
“Your mother hated these rules.”
I froze.
My mother had died when I was seventeen.
“What?”
Rosa nodded.
“She fought with Lucille constantly.”
I had never known.
My memories were of tense dinners, my mother leaving early, Lucille calling her sensitive.
Same word.
Always.
“What about?”
“You.”
I stared.
Rosa continued.
“When you were four, Lucille made you stand beside the table because you spilled wine.”
I remembered fragments.
A red stain.
Adults eating.
My mother furious.
“She took you home.”
I remembered that too.
My father called it embarrassment.
Apparently my mother called it enough.
Rosa said:
“After that, your mother stopped letting Lucille discipline you.”
History.
Again.
My mother had drawn the boundary I was drawing now.
I simply forgot because I was too young to understand it.
Lucille had not.
May you like
She had been waiting for another child she could shape.
My son.
