Chapter 10
My father had not been innocent either.
Mrs. Alden reminded me.
“He recorded himself,” she said. “But sometimes he recorded meetings without making it obvious.”
I stared.
“How often?”
“Rarely.”
Still.
“Did Marina know?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
The moral line she crossed had first been blurred by him.
I went through his remaining archive.
Not listening.
Reading labels.
Three boxes marked dispute.
Two marked loyalty.
One marked Lorenzo.
My own name.
From fifteen years earlier.
I wanted to hear it.
Badly.
My father died before saying many things I wanted answers to.
Why he chose me.
Whether he trusted me.
Whether he regretted how little childhood I had.
All of it might be inside.
I carried the box to Claire.
She looked at it.
“What is it?”
“Me.”
She understood.
“Will you listen?”
“I don’t know.”
She waited.
I asked:
“What would you do?”
“No.”
Immediate.
I almost smiled.
“Why?”
“Because if he wanted you to hear it, he could have given it to you.”
That hurt.
True.
Maybe.
Or maybe death interrupted him.
Uncertainty.
Again.
I hated it.
Which was exactly why this mattered.
I took the box to Mrs. Alden.
“Was this meant for me?”
She read the label.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Your father marked messages with a white stripe.”
No stripe.
That settled it.
I burned the box.
It hurt.
More than I expected.
Marina heard.
She laughed bitterly.
“You destroyed Father’s voice.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“I destroyed something he never gave me.”
Her face changed.
That distinction was foreign to both of us.
We grew up believing family granted access.
Bedrooms.
Letters.
Business.
Grief.
Everything.
Maybe that was why surveillance felt almost natural once technology made it possible.
We had never been taught that love included doors.
May you like
Claire had.
She was teaching me.
