Chapter 21
Lily asked why she was not in Carbone shareholder education when she was eight.
Raffaele almost choked.
Sophia looked at him.
“This is your fault.”
“I said nothing.”
“You exist.”
Apparently enough.
Emma was eleven.
She had received an optional invitation to a youth financial-literacy program run by outside educators.
Not Carbone succession training.
Sophia had agreed because the program included children from several shareholder families and employees.
Lily noticed.
“Why Emma?”
“She’s older.”
“So me later?”
“Maybe.”
Lily frowned.
“Do I have company?”
Sophia stopped.
Raffaele became very interested in his coffee.
“You may inherit some economic interests someday.”
“What’s economic?”
Raffaele opened his mouth.
Sophia pointed.
“No.”
He closed it.
“Money connected to companies,” Sophia said.
Lily considered.
“Do I work there?”
“Not unless you want to and are qualified.”
“Grandpa works.”
“Yes.”
“Mommy used to.”
“Yes.”
“Emma?”
Emma answered herself.
“No.”
Lily looked surprised.
“You don’t want?”
“I want animals.”
Sophia smiled.
Emma wanted to become a veterinarian that month.
Three months earlier she wanted architecture.
Before that, marine biology despite refusing to swim in deep water.
Raffaele said:
“Reasonable planning horizon.”
Sophia stared.
He surrendered.
The financial-literacy program created a problem anyway.
One slide showed a family tree.
Raffaele at the top.
Sophia below.
Emma and Lily beneath her.
Title:
THE NEXT GENERATION.
Sophia saw the materials after the first session.
Her expression changed.
“Who approved this?”
Not Raffaele.
Good.
The outside education contractor had used a generic family-enterprise template.
No operational succession was implied.
Still.
Sophia objected.
“Children are not organizational charts.”
The contractor apologized.
Revised the materials.
Future sessions used ownership categories rather than people arranged as future leaders.
Raffaele thought Sophia was overreacting.
He made the mistake of saying so.
“It is one slide.”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
“It did not assign jobs.”
“No.”
“Then?”
Sophia waited.
He understood eventually.
Gregory had expected marriage to create business authority because family position and company position had been blurred for years.
The old system had taught people that becoming family moved them closer to power.
A slide showing children as “next generation” repeated the same assumption more politely.
Raffaele sighed.
“You are exhausting.”
“You raised me.”
“Badly, apparently.”
Emma attended the revised program.
Learned basic finance.
Hated accounting.
Liked supply chains because trucks were involved.
Lily joined three years later.
Hated everything except lunch.
Neither child was presented as an heir.
That irritated older relatives.
One asked Raffaele:
“Then who takes over?”
Raffaele looked toward Sophia.
She said nothing.
Good.
He answered himself.
“Whoever is qualified when I’m gone.”
The relative stared.
“Family?”
“Maybe.”
That answer would have been impossible five years earlier.
May you like
Now it merely made dinner uncomfortable.
Progress.
