Chapter 14 - THE COMMENTS
Kerensa never saw most of the internet comments.
I did.
Another mistake.
I searched.
Again and again.
People called me:
Hero.
Abuser.
Absent father.
Good dad.
Violent hypocrite.
Clueless millionaire.
I was not a millionaire? Actually could be. Not necessary.
Some said the entire thing was staged.
Some said Meliora should lose every hair on her head.
Some said Kerensa would be traumatized forever.
People love permanent predictions about children they do not know.
Maya told me:
“Stop reading strangers as if they are witnesses.”
I stopped.
Mostly.
Then one evening Kerensa found a reposted clip from an old public craft video.
She recognized herself.
“Can I watch?”
I sat beside her.
It showed:
Kerensa painting a wooden birdhouse.
Meliora laughing.
No crying.
No coercion visible.
Kerensa smiled.
“I liked that one.”
I almost said:
We should delete it.
Then stopped.
Her memory was not required to become uniformly bad.
“Do you want me to turn it off?”
“No.”
We watched.
At the end, Kerensa held the birdhouse up.
She looked happy.
Maybe she was.
That complicated my anger.
Meliora had not fabricated every smile.
She had taken something that could be harmless and built incentives around it until consent disappeared.
That distinction mattered.
Kerensa asked:
“Can I keep birdhouse?”
It was still at the old house.
I retrieved it through lawyers.
No drama.
May you like
She put it by her bedroom window.
Healing did not require burning every object connected to Meliora.
