Chapter 2
I ended the banquet.
Immediately.
Mabel came upstairs with me.
No guests.
No questions.
Her birthday cake remained untouched downstairs.
I hated that more than the broken silver bowls.
Children remember which moments adults ruin.
In her room, I found bare shelves.
No books.
No photographs.
The wardrobe half empty.
Her mother’s rabbit missing.
Mabel stood in the doorway.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Did I do something?”
There it was.
The injury Corinne could not see because it left no mark.
“No.”
“Why does Aunt Celestine need my room?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Corinne said grown-ups need proper rooms.”
I looked at her.
“And children?”
“She said children adjust.”
I almost laughed.
People often call children adaptable when what they mean is convenient.
I knelt.
“This is your room.”
Her shoulders loosened slightly.
“Forever?”
Hard question.
Nothing is forever.
But six-year-olds do not need philosophy during emotional eviction.
“As long as you want it.”
Good enough.
Then she whispered:
“Aunt Celestine already brought boxes.”
I went still.
“Where?”
“Behind Mommy’s old room.”
My late wife’s suite had been closed for three years.
Not sealed.
Just unused.
I opened the connecting corridor.
Boxes.
Sixteen.
Some labeled CELESTINE.
Others:
OLIVER.
I knew Oliver.
Celestine’s twelve-year-old son.
The last three boxes had no names.
Inside the first:
School books.
Inside the second:
Boys’ formal clothes.
Inside the third:
A small framed photograph of Celestine, Oliver—
and Corinne.
On the back, someone had written:
THE NEW HOUSEHOLD.
No date.
No signature.
I stared at it.
May you like
Mabel had not been losing one bedroom.
Corinne had been assembling an entire replacement family wing around mine.
