Chapter 25 - THE CARDIGAN
Nora had kept Sophie’s gray cardigan from the gala.
I discovered that when Sophie was thirty-two.
Mia found it in a storage box and tried putting it on a stuffed bear.
I froze.
Nora noticed.
“You want me to burn it?”
“No.”
“You did once.”
“I know.”
The cardigan was worn at the cuffs.
Tiny.
Nothing about it looked like $50,000.
That was why I hated it for years.
Then Mia put it on the stuffed bear backward and announced:
“Fancy.”
Sophie laughed.
No one told the child the object was sacred.
Good.
Nora said:
“I kept it because Sophie liked it.”
Not as evidence.
Not as accusation.
Clothes.
Then Sophie asked:
“Dad, do you still think about that night?”
“Yes.”
“Every gala?”
“Less.”
She nodded.
“I mostly remember the chandeliers.”
Not hunger.
Not financial betrayal.
Chandeliers.
Children remember differently.
Then she added:
“And you looked really old.”
I was forty-nine.
May you like
Unacceptable.
Family healing ended temporarily.
