Chapter 20 - The Shareholders’ Dinner
The first annual shareholders’ dinner after litigation was held at Francesca’s boutique hotel.
Neutral? It was hers, but commercial and professional.
No family home.
No child attendance normally.
Emery was invited only to first hour because she was a shareholder beneficiary, but Sterling advised she did not need to attend.
I asked her.
“No.”
Good.
She stayed home.
Adults discussed adult money without making child mascot.
Then reports.
DeLuca Group had grown modestly.
Hospitality stabilized.
Warehouse sale proceeds reinvested.
Employee-share plan working.
Francesca’s personal investment successful but separate.
No major conflict.
Then a shareholder asked:
“When does Emery begin attending?”
Sterling:
“When developmentally appropriate and when she chooses, not because adults want symbolic continuity.”
Good.
Then Francesca supported.
Huge.
Then dinner conversation drifted to Giovanni.
Dante said:
“He’d hate independent chair.”
Thomas Grant replied:
“Good.”
Everyone laughed.
Then Francesca raised glass:
“To professional governance. Apparently.”
That was enough.
Then afterward she asked me privately:
“Do you regret removing me?”
“No.”
“Do you think I was good chair?”
“Yes.”
“Both?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
Then:
“That took me a long time.”
I knew.
Then I asked:
“Do you regret fighting A-24?”
“Yes and no.”
“Explain.”
“I regret what I did to Emery. I regret trying to dilute before court decided. I don’t regret asking whether Giovanni had capacity or whether the transfer was valid.”
Fair.
Legal challenge legitimate.
Then:
“I had rights too.”
“Yes.”
There.
No villain loses right to question.
Then:
“I wish I had done it in daylight.”
Exactly.
Then we left.
No hug.
Normal.
Then Emery’s relationship with Francesca deepened slowly.
Monthly lunch.
Occasional museum.
No unsupervised overnight.
She began calling her Grandma again without hesitation.
Not every wound must preserve title distance forever.
Then one afternoon Emery asked:
“Grandma blood?”
“Yes, biologically related to me.”
“I not.”
“Not biologically.”
“Then what?”
“My daughter.”
“That word.”
Yes.
Then she asked Francesca later:
“Does blood matter?”
Francesca answered:
“For doctors sometimes. Not for chairs.”
I laughed when Emery reported.
Good.
Then one old family member still refused to accept.
Great-aunt Lucia called Emery “Salvatore’s adopted girl.”
Francesca corrected:
“Emery.”
Lucia persisted.
Francesca asked her to leave.
No violence.
No scene.
Boundary.
Later I thanked.
Francesca said:
“Don’t make it heroic. I’m correcting my own mess.”
Good.
Then family holidays changed seating.
No fixed “blood table.”
Children together.
Adults mixed.
The chair at head remained mine only because host.
Then Emery one Christmas sat on floor by rocking horse opening presents.
No one told her where to sit.
She did not care.
Then I realized the original chair had become just furniture again.
Not throne.
Not proof.
Good.
Then the old DeLuca signet ring remained in secure custody except formal family history event.
Emery asked to see once.
Held.
Too heavy.
“Ugly.”
I agreed.
Francesca offended.
“Your grandfather wore that forty years.”
“Ugly forty years.”
Emery was right.
We laughed.
Then she put it back.
No reverence required.
Then company archives displayed replica in history room? Maybe no. Avoid.
Then Francesca offered to buy Emery a smaller ring someday.
“No,” I said.
Emery said:
“Maybe when older.”
Her choice overrode my automatic no. Good catch.
“Fine.”
Then Francesca smiled.
All of us learning.
The next chapters would close the last remaining consequences:
My censure.
Dante’s reporting restrictions.
Francesca’s emeritus dispute.
And the question of whether DeLuca Group should keep family control at all.
May you like
The answer would surprise every one of us because it did not come from Giovanni’s papers.
It came from admitting the papers could not govern people forever.
