Chapter 25 - ONE MEETING
Piers was thirteen when he asked to meet Marcelline.
One time.
Maya no longer treated him regularly but recommended a mediator.
Public office.
No food.
Piers insisted on that.
“I don’t want snacks there.”
Understood.
Marcelline entered slowly.
Older.
Smaller than memory.
Piers looked at her.
First question:
“Why did you say starve again?”
No warm-up.
She breathed in.
“Because I had withheld food before and I wanted you to know I would do it again if you didn’t obey.”
He stared.
“That’s messed up.”
“Yes.”
“Why me, not Lily?”
“Because I was angry at your mother and father.”
“I was four.”
“I know.”
“Did that not matter?”
“At the time, not enough.”
He sat back.
Then:
“Did you hide Daddy’s letters because of money?”
“Partly.”
“What other part?”
“I believed I had saved him and therefore knew what was best for him.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
“Did he really abandon me?”
Marcelline looked down.
“For six months, yes.”
Piers flinched slightly.
I almost intervened.
He raised one hand.
No.
His meeting.
Marcelline continued:
“After that, I helped keep him away.”
Piers nodded slowly.
“Good.”
She looked confused.
“Good?”
“You didn’t lie to make Dad perfect.”
There.
Precision again.
Then:
“Do you want me to forgive you?”
Marcelline’s eyes filled.
“I want it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She swallowed.
“No. You don’t owe me that.”
Piers looked at the mediator.
Then back.
“I don’t.”
No cruelty.
Statement.
“Maybe someday I won’t care as much.”
Marcelline nodded.
“That is enough.”
“No. It’s what I have.”
Better.
The meeting ended after thirty-six minutes.
No hug.
No promise.
Outside, Piers asked:
“Can we get burgers?”
I laughed.
“Yes.”
“Good ones.”
“Yes.”
We went to a diner.
He ordered medium-well.
Normal.
No symbolic blackened plate.
Then Everett joined us unexpectedly? Better planned: Piers called him.
“Dad, Aunt Marcelline told truth.”
Everett paused.
“I’m glad.”
“She said you abandoned me six months.”
“Yes.”
“You still agree?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Then Piers hung up and ate fries.
That was the late climax.
Not a conviction.
A child finally hearing the truth from the person who once weaponized it.
Nobody was absolved.
May you like
Nobody was mythologized.
The story could finally stop being about competing versions.
