Chapter 22 - DAVID AT FIFTY
David never returned to Bennett Crest governance.
He built a successful career in commercial development outside the family.
Paid restitution.
Completed probation.
Remained Leo’s father.
Our co-parenting became boring.
Schedules.
School holidays.
Doctor appointments.
Eventually no court supervisor.
At fifty, David asked me to coffee.
We sat across from each other without lawyers for the first time in years.
“I want to ask something.”
“Okay.”
“Do you think I married you because of the trust?”
I thought.
“No.”
His eyes filled.
“I think your mother introduced us partly because of it. I think you knew before proposing. I also think you loved me.”
He nodded.
“Does that make it better?”
“No.”
“What does it make it?”
“Complicated.”
He smiled sadly.
“I can live with complicated.”
Good.
I had stopped needing him to be either villain or lost love.
He was a man who loved me and betrayed me.
Then changed.
People can contain both.
Leo understood that too.
He loved his father.
May you like
Stayed angry about parts of the past.
No contradiction.
