Chapter 11
Seraphine and I tried dinner alone after six months.
Disaster.
Too much memory.
Too many ghosts.
We spent twenty minutes discussing a soup neither of us liked because everything real felt dangerous.
Then she laughed.
“I forgot how terrible you are at normal conversation.”
“I was widowed.”
“So was I.”
Fair.
Thomas had died.
We both understood grief.
Different.
Real.
Then she asked:
“Would we still be married if none of this happened?”
I thought.
“I don’t know.”
Good answer.
She smiled sadly.
“Neither do I.”
That freed us.
We did not need to prove Father stole a perfect future.
He stole choice.
That was enough.
Maybe we would have stayed.
Maybe divorced.
Maybe had children.
Maybe not.
May you like
The crime of control is not that it always ruins the best outcome.
It is that nobody gets to know which outcome was theirs.
