Chapter 13
The family stopped using suspended art at private events.
Not a formal rule.
Everyone simply lost the appetite.
Fine.
More important changes happened elsewhere.
No child attended succession dinners.
No family ceremony placed elderly relatives into symbolic loyalty tests.
No one could claim a person’s spontaneous reaction as political evidence without context.
That last one irritated the older capos.
Good.
I also changed one habit of my own.
I stopped bringing Nina to every family gathering.
Not because Valerie had been right.
Because I realized I had been using her presence too.
Not strategically.
Emotionally.
I liked people seeing us together.
Liked the message that fatherhood did not weaken me.
Still a message.
Nina did not need to be proof of my philosophy either.
Sometimes she wanted to stay home and paint.
So she stayed home.
The first time, three people asked if she was sick.
“No.”
“Where is she?”
May you like
“Being four.”
That answer became useful.
