Chapter 21 - THE DINING ROOM REOPENS
The upper dining room closed for three months.
Not because I declared the floor cursed.
Because it was tied to active investigation and because I needed time.
When it reopened, we changed nothing architectural.
Same table.
Same portraits.
Same stairs.
One policy changed.
No child seating hierarchy based on age or ceremonial “presentation.”
Children could attend family meals appropriate to them.
Confidential meetings remained separate.
Boring.
My father called the change:
“Performative.”
Through counsel.
I did not answer.
Our first dinner had ten people.
Sophie.
Julia.
Mia.
My sister.
Laura.
Two cousins.
Caleb off duty? No.
No security inside dining room.
Sophie’s place card sat beside mine.
She looked.
Then moved it.
Across the table beside Mia.
I stared.
Julia smiled.
“What?”
“I thought she wanted beside me.”
“She wants Mia.”
Sophie said:
“Daddy talks boring.”
There.
I had spent months defending her right to sit beside me.
May you like
She used that right to sit somewhere else.
Exactly as rights should work.
