Chapter 24 - PRISCA’S DEATH
Prisca died at eighty-six.
Heart failure.
No mystery.
No hidden poisoning.
No final corporate plot.
I attended the funeral.
Neriah did too.
Her choice.
No one told her she had to.
Prisca’s estate satisfied outstanding obligations first.
Then lawful assets distributed.
She left Neriah:
Pearl earrings.
A bracelet.
A letter.
Neriah kept the earrings.
Sold the bracelet.
Read the letter.
Prisca wrote:
You told the truth when I ordered you to lie. I spent years believing that made you disloyal. It made you safer than the adults around you.
Then:
Your father believed you immediately. I hated him for that because I had spent his whole life teaching him to doubt himself before he doubted me.
I had to sit.
Neriah continued.
At the end:
The family did not collapse when I lost control. That may be the hardest fact I ever learned.
Neriah kept the letter for several years.
Then gave it to the family archive.
No shrine.
No dramatic burning.
May you like
History belongs somewhere.
It does not have to live beside your bed.
