Chapter 24 - Uncle Franco says sorry badly
Franco did not transform elegantly.
He apologized like a man being dragged by a horse.
At seventy-three, he came to lunch.
“Elowen looks good.”
“She is.”
“You did what you had to.”
That was his apology apparently.
“For what?”
He sighed.
“Don’t make me do this.”
“Then don’t.”
He glared.
Then:
“I should not have told you to keep police out.”
There.
“Why did you?”
“Because that’s what we did.”
“Yes.”
“It kept us alive.”
“Sometimes.”
He looked at me.
“And sometimes it kept us stupid.”
There.
Better.
He never joined a therapy circle.
Never became a governance evangelist.
He did stop calling independent directors:
“the babysitters.”
Progress.
When one cousin later had a domestic dispute, Franco surprised everyone by saying:
“Call the lawyer and police if needed. Don’t bring it to family dinner.”
I heard about it secondhand.
May you like
Systems change through repeated boring choices.
Not speeches.
