Chapter 10
The portrait moved.
Evangeline heard and arrived furious.
Invited this time.
Good.
“You’re taking her down.”
“No.”
The painting moved from the main portrait gallery to the private family library.
Still beautiful.
Still visible.
No spotlight.
No flower altar.
No console beneath it.
Just Lenora among other family portraits.
Evangeline cried.
“You’re erasing her.”
Maribel answered before I could.
“No.”
Then:
“We’re allowing other people to exist.”
That silenced the room.
I also ended the formal birthday memorial dinner.
Anyone who wanted to remember Lenora could.
Privately.
Voluntarily.
No staff required to serve her favorite meal because the dead had preferences.
No guests required to praise someone they barely knew.
Memory stopped being calendar law.
Evangeline hated it.
Mother—my mother, Celia—loved it.
Apparently she had hated those dinners for years but assumed I needed them.
Another silence.
Excellent.
May you like
I began discovering how many traditions survived because everyone thought someone else wanted them.
That may be the most dangerous kind.
