Chapter 21 - MILES HEARS HIS STORY
Miles learned about the ballroom when he was eleven.
Kelsey and Grant told him together.
I was not there.
Later Kelsey told me how he responded.
“My dad hit Alessia because I was a boy?”
“No,” Kelsey said. “Your father hit Alessia because he made a violent choice. He used the fact you were a boy as part of what he said.”
Important.
Miles asked:
“Would he have hit her if I was a girl?”
No one knew.
Grant answered:
“I don’t get to build a version where some different fact makes my choice somebody else’s fault.”
That was good.
Then Miles asked whether Clara hated him.
Kelsey called me.
I put Clara on video only after asking her.
Miles said:
“Do you hate me because Dad said heir?”
Clara looked horrified.
“No. You’re annoying because you cheat at Mario Kart.”
Sibling hierarchy restored.
Then they argued for fifteen minutes.
I listened from the kitchen and felt something inside me finally loosen.
Grant’s violence had tried to place the children on opposite sides before either was born.
They refused.
May you like
Not consciously.
By being children.
