Chapter 6
The chain came from the old kennel house.
That detail mattered more than I expected.
My guards found the matching lock and bolt cutters inside a storage cabinet near the eastern wall.
The kennel had not housed dogs in twelve years.
My father closed it.
Agatha had hated that decision.
When I asked why, Thomas told me something I had never known.
Agatha used the place for “discipline.”
Not dogs.
Young family members.
My stomach turned.
“What kind?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“Nothing severe.”
I stared at him.
Men always begin with that sentence when the next one is shameful.
Thomas sighed.
“Older generation. Boys who stole. Fought. Disobeyed. Sometimes they were locked inside for an hour.”
“How old?”
“Seven. Eight.”
I looked away.
Elliot was three.
Thomas continued.
“Your father stopped it after Julian was put there overnight.”
That surprised me.
“Julian?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
Everything shifted.
Agatha had chained my son using hardware from the same place her own son had been punished as a child.
I went to Julian.
“Your mother locked you in the kennel.”
His face emptied.
Then hardened.
“Old story.”
“How old were you?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Six?”
Silence.
That was yes.
“And now you call my son an animal.”
His jaw tightened.
“Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“I don’t need to.”
I pointed toward the garden.
“You repeated it.”
He looked away.
For the first time, anger gave way to something uglier.
Shame.
“She said it made me strong.”
Of course.
The sentence survives every generation.
Cruelty worked because the victim lived.
Therefore cruelty deserves credit for the survival.
I looked at him.
“No.”
He stared.
“It taught you what to do to someone smaller when you wanted to feel powerful.”
That hit.
He looked like he wanted to swing.
May you like
He did not.
Maybe because for the first time, he understood the rod in his hand had belonged to someone else long before him.
