Chapter 12 - MY SON’S EXPLANATION
Julian asked to see me one last time.
I agreed.
Through lawyers.
He looked at me and said:
“Claire is alive.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Now I do.”
“She abandoned Chloe.”
“Yes.”
His face changed.
He expected resistance.
I gave him none.
“What Claire did was wrong.”
Julian leaned forward.
“Then you understand.”
“No.”
His expression tightened.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Taking somebody else’s wrongdoing and using it to justify yours.”
“I was protecting Chloe from the Harts.”
“You told her she was dead.”
“I told her we were pretending.”
“She’s six.”
“We needed cooperation.”
“From a child.”
He looked down.
Then:
“You don't know what Richard was doing.”
“Then fight Richard legally.”
“He owns everyone.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“You couldn’t control him.”
Julian looked up.
“So you controlled Chloe.”
Silence.
That was the answer.
Then I asked:
“Why the casket?”
His face broke.
“Victoria thought relatives needed something convincing.”
“And you agreed.”
“Yes.”
“Why the restraint?”
“I didn’t know they had installed it that way.”
Possible.
Maybe even true.
Still irrelevant to the larger act.
“You knew your living daughter would be placed inside a casket.”
“Yes.”
“And you allowed everyone to believe she was dead.”
He started crying.
“I thought once the trust situation was fixed, I’d bring her back somehow.”
“Back from death?”
He had no answer.
Julian’s tragedy was not that he lacked love.
I believed he loved Chloe.
That made it worse.
He had inherited the same family disease as Richard and Claire in different forms:
If I love you enough, I may decide which truths you can survive.
I stood.
He whispered:
“Mom.”
I stopped.
“Do you still love me?”
The question hurt.
“Yes.”
Hope crossed his face.
May you like
I finished:
“And that no longer changes what I do with the truth.”
