Chapter 12
We visited the old Bellaro hunting lodge where my father and Michael Mercer made the original arrangement.
Not because I wanted closure.
Because Vivienne did.
The dining room still had the same long table from the photograph.
I hated it immediately.
Two fathers sitting there years ago, deciding their children might solve problems they were tired of carrying.
Maybe they meant well.
That was not enough.
Vivienne ran her fingers over the chair where Gloria had been sitting in the picture.
“My mother probably thought she was helping.”
“I know.”
“That’s the worst part.”
I understood.
Monsters are easier.
Parents who love you while repeatedly overriding your choices are much harder.
Rafe found an old locked cabinet behind the dining room.
Inside were letters.
My father to Michael.
Michael to my father.
Not instructions.
Negotiations.
One letter from my father surprised me.
If Dante and Vivienne dislike each other, this ends. We are not buying peace with their lives.
I sat down.
Vivienne read it twice.
Her father answered:
Agreed.
That mattered.
The original plan was manipulative.
But there had been a limit.
Meet them.
Do not force them.
Somewhere after both men died, Elias and Gloria turned possibility into obligation.
They inherited an idea and made it harsher.
Exactly how bad traditions evolve while everyone claims to preserve them.
Then we found another letter.
From Michael Mercer to Gloria.
If they have children, leave them alone.
Vivienne started crying.
Her father had anticipated her mother too.
Gloria had kept the letter.
Never obeyed it.
I looked at my wife.
“Do you want it?”
She nodded.
We took that one.
Left the rest.
May you like
Not every dead person’s thought needed to become scripture.
Some history can remain furniture.
