Chapter 20 - VIOLETTA AND ANATOLE
Anatole met Violetta alone for the first time in months.
He told me afterward only what he had permission to share.
Good.
He asked:
“Did Elena ask for Halvard the night she died?”
Violetta said yes.
“What did you tell her?”
“I said he loved her.”
“Did you call him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She had hours.”
“Exactly.”
Violetta cried.
Then Anatole asked the question he had avoided six years.
“Were you afraid she loved him more?”
Violetta said:
“Yes.”
There.
Sibling rivalry at forty and thirty-two.
Absurd.
Real.
Then:
“Did you think she loved me more than you?”
Anatole asked.
Violetta laughed through tears.
“No. She was furious with you half the time.”
Fair.
Then Anatole:
“So why make love a ranking?”
No answer.
When he told me, I realized I had done the same.
I wanted Mother’s desire to see me to prove something.
That I mattered.
That Violetta lied because she knew Mother chose me.
Dangerous.
The letter did not say Mother chose one child.
It said she wanted her son.
She already had her daughter beside her.
There should have been room for both.
Violetta’s fear turned addition into replacement.
That was the mistake.
Then Anatole said:
“I am stepping down as foundation chair next year.”
I looked up.
“Because of this?”
“Because I’m fifty-five and tired of everyone calling me patriarch like it’s a job.”
I laughed.
“What will you do?”
“Fish.”
“You hate fishing.”
“Then I’ll become excellent at hating it.”
Good.
The foundation would not pass automatically to me.
Or Violetta.
Professional governance.
May you like
Family still represented.
No throne.
